Rich Source Materials
This week's required readings were very rich in terms of wonderful and diverse articles on a variety of topics: Affect & Interest Awareness, Game Design, Digital Gaming & Student Engagement, Students' Motivation & their Social Context. These articles illustrated the dynamic research that is taking place in a plethora of academic areas, which secondary and post-secondary instructors might draw upon to promote students' interest and engagement. Some of the reading insights I found the most interesting included the following:
(1). Affect & Interest Awareness
- Motivational and affective processes can interact to influence cognitive and behavioral outcomes (P&S, Chpt. 7, p. 281): This research finding is so important for teachers to understand and internalize. If students are feeling anxious or depressed about their academic studies, their achievement scores are going to be impacted. Students might exhibit self-protective (i.e., task(s) avoidance) or self-sabotaging (i.e., procrastination) behavior as forms of coping measures to deal with their emotional disequilibrium. If a teacher sees the above type of behaviors in students, it is sometimes good to have a very brief individual conferences or private side talks with the students to find out what is going on in their lives, so that together they might form an action plan to help deal with any particular stress and get the students back on track academically.
(2). Game Design & Student Engagement
- First of all, I did not know that the computer and video games industry was so profitable in the United States: "$6 billion dollars was spent in the United States in 2001" (Dickey, 2005, p.67). This data is 10 years old, so one can just imagine what the spending dollar amount is in 2011. More surprising is that Wang, Khoo, Liu, Aharan (2008) revealed that the video-game industry is now giving the movie industry a run for its money (Passion and Intrinsic Motivation in Digital Gaming, p. 39).
- Second, although published research exists about the cognitive benefits shown in students that actively, play computer and video games, there is a dearth in research that shows the motivational benefits of having students engage in game-playing in an academic setting with educational games. In table 1: A Comparison of Engaged Learning and Game Design Elements, Dickey reveals clear alignments between motivational learning pedagogy and game design. Dickey believes that instructional designers can play pivotal roles in creating engaging and interactive learning environments by viewing game design as "a type of guiding architecture" (p.79). From the perspective of a novice instructional designer who is starting her professional training, models are great to see and learn from when not having any prerequisite schema to draw upon.
- Negative peer influence: My older sister is going through this problem with my 14 year old niece right now. My niece is doing well in school; however, she formed friendships with two neighborhood girls that do not go to her high school. Currently, the problem is that my niece stopped doing her house chores when she gets home from school; instead, she tends to hang out with these girls, who seem to be only interested in partying. Although my sister told my niece that she is against the friendships, my niece is not listening to her because the two girls are very popular with the neighborhood boys. It seems that she thinks friendship and association with these girls will promote interest with her. My sister is very distraught over this whole situation and just does not know what to do because it seems eventually negative peer pressure and after school activities will start to impact my niece's academic achievement. So as I read the chapter on social context, negative influences seem not only a challenge to teachers in the school setting, but also represents a challenge to concerned parents who want only the best for their kids.
~Aja
References
Dickey, M.D. (2007, June). Engaging by design: How engagement strategies in popular computer and video games can inform instructional design. Educational technology research and development, 55(3), 253-273.
Pintrich, P. R., & Schunk, D.H. (2002). Motivation in education: Theory, research, and applications. (2nd ed.). Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Merrill.
Wang, C.K.J, Khoo, A., Liu, W.C., & Divaharan, S. (2008). Passion and intrinsic motivation in digital gaming. Cyberpsychology & behavior, 11(1),
Hi Aja!
ReplyDeleteAs always, your post for this week was thoughtful and relevant. Since I am approaching one year since I resigned as a classroom teacher to become a full-time student, I am beginning to make a shift from thinking of everything with a classroom teacher's lens to one of thinking about teacher preparation and professional development. In reading your thoughts on "affect and interest awareness" I am reminded that educators are in a difficult position right now with many feeling discouraged and unsupported. The teacher evaluation system to go into affect soon is causing many to feel anxiety, anger and aggravated. For those of us who will be interacting with teachers in our research or as resources for professional development, it will be important to be aware of these feelings and find ways to validate and support them in their work. I think it's easy to assume professionals (adults) are different from younger students however as I learn about motivation and professional development, I recognize more and more similarities with many of the same challenges in motivating "the audience".
Mary
Hi Mary:
ReplyDeleteThank you for your great return comments. Your insights are always appreciated. Yes, IDE 736 has been an amazing course that skilfully demonstrated how multifaceted and dynamic motivation is on all academic levels (i.e., elementary, secondary, and post-secondary). This is my first time hearing about an upcoming teacher evaluation system under the "RACE TO THE TOP" program. This is just another way for school administrators and officials to stress-out mainstream classroom teachers. It is bad enough that many of them feel compelled to teach-to-the-test, now teachers have to deal with Big Brother looking over their shoulders! When will this madness end?
Yin shared with me, information about an educational grassroots movement called, "Save-Our-Schools" that had a huge rally in Washington D.C. two Saturdays ago. It seems that everyday people are waking up to realization that the current educational system is not working and America continues to fall behind in academic and educational readiness in comparison to other advanced industrial nations. There are individuals who remember that the achievement gap between all population groups in the United States had closed among in the 1970s. It happened once, so it can happen again with a return to active, meaningful, and engaged learning.
Best,
~Aja
Hi Aja, I'm having trouble posting to your blog today - so here's my comment!
ReplyDeleteHi Aja,
I think you've hit upon really important points from this week's readings. I think your comments about interest and awareness speak to what teachers should always be doing, but what even the best of us sometimes get away from - that very human element of caring for our students. If we care about them and believe in our roles as educators, then this should come naturally - be attentive to their emotional states and how that can affect their ability to learn. But the reality is sometimes different, when you see over 100 students a day and are racing through a bell-schedule that barely allows you time to go to the bathroom, much less have those all too necessary heart-to-heart conversations. What's the answer? Smaller classes, more time... and maybe not being afraid of the "downtime" we all need when transitioning from one thing to another. I know teachers who are loathe to ever put students in groups because they "are off task and talking about the weekend, game, prom, etc." Well, what's the first thing we do when sitting down for a faculty meeting - are we immediately tuned in only to the principal? Ha. Students talking is part of the social contract and is necessary to establish the rapport needed for effective collaboration. Why would they be willing to share their feelings about a reading or ideas about a project when they haven't even broken the ice yet? Students are people, not robots or ID numbers. And since our schools won't allow for this, we as teachers must create spaces inside the classroom that do.
Thank you for your input, Aja - as always your post gets right to the heart of the matter, and I appreciate what you have to say!
Hi Aja,
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your personal story bout your sister and niece. I lso know how peers can have a positive or negative effect on kids. My daughter had some peer pressure working on her at a young age and it was really tough to get her to see the other side of the whole ordeal. There's an old saying "ask a teenager while they still know everything!" It is so true because no matter what you tell them, they still think they know better. So I feel for your sister! I think the social aspect of motivation needs to be studied very closely due to the amount of influence it bears on students and the decisions they make. I was happy to see these articles being used for this class. We can make attempts to steer our kids in a particular direction but friends are very influential and can do harm...but they can also do good things. I have seen kids come around themselves without much coaxing from teachers or parents and realize that certain "friends" are not friends at all or are not quite suitable. I think that we need to keep reinforcing the idea with our kids that we respect their opinions in making good decisions but that we can still guide them to making better choices. Kids who are not motivated can always use a little help!
Hi Sarah:
ReplyDeleteI love your idea about establishing space in the classroom for creativity, dialoguing, collaborative student-teacher interactions. These types of activities are needed in not only the elementary and secondary classrooms, but also in post-secondary face-to-face classrooms and online. Motivational research has revealed that students learn better while socially interacting with one another. In addition, if strategically guided and directed, student could be encouraged to take more control of their learning experience to make it meaningful.
One of the graduate students in my department just did a thesis on youth activism in Detroit in the 1970s. Through archival research and primary documents the student showed how the young people during that period supplemented their educational activities when the school curriculum was not meeting their academic needs. The students founded their own school newspaper and weekly comic strip series that addressed the dominate social concerns of their time. In addition, many participated in after-school book reading clubs. If young people did this 40 years ago, they can do it again.
Best,
~Aja
Hi Jen:
ReplyDeleteI think you hit the nail right on its head when you said: "I think the social aspect of motivation needs to be studied very closely due to the amount of influence it bears on students and the decisions they make." I am so glad that I enrolled in this class on motivation because in many ways it has opened my eyes about the importance of motivational awareness on multiple levels. Negative and positive peer pressure can occur not only in school, but also outside of school. Teachers and parents are vulnerable in that they have to find ways to effective deal with kids who are being influenced by negative peer pressure with out totally alienating the kids they are trying to reach. This is no easy task. Yet, as some of our fellow classmates have noted all is not lost it teacher and parents continue to persevere and not lose faith that they can ultimately get through to their kids.
I am confident that the situation with my niece will hopefully work itself out because as you recommended my sister has to show my niece that while her opinions do hold value to her, non-family members might not have her best interest at heart, so learning to be a better judge of character is a skill that my niece will have to further develop.
Best,
~Aja
Sorry I've been out of the loop everyone. I've been busy with dissertation data collection and was out of town.
ReplyDeleteAbout how we interact with students, I came across this:
"We have to be careful when we talk to students. We, indeed, have the power to inspire students, but we also have the power to crush their spirit. Sometimes it’s much easier to chastise than it is to motivate." - Edie Parrott
I have seen students who have been crushed in spirit in classrooms because of a lack of sensitivity, or simply because the teacher is too preoccupied with many other things. Creating an affect-sensitive learning environment is to me one of my future research goals. Affect plays such a powerful role in driving motivation that teacher training ought to pay more attention to that.