Post written by Matthew J. Weyers
Two years ago, prompted by a blog post that asked, "How many student assignments end up in the recycling bin within minutes of students seeing the grade?," I began thinking about the role of rewards and social interaction in education. The post's question hit close to home, and made me reflect deeply on my current practice. I decided to evaluate my 6th grade language arts and science courses through the lens of two questions: Beyond a letter grade, what motivation do my students have to do well? and, If the primary motivation is extrinsic, how can I make the project more intrinsically motivating? By the end of the school year, I had a three-pronged answer. I had to
- Relinquish a certain level of control and place added responsibility on students.
- Allow students to produce work for an authentic audience (meaning not just for me).
- Give students autonomous opportunities to collaborate on their work.
Here are some of the practices I'm using to hit these three targets.
Relinquishing Control
I know students need content knowledge to be successful in school; however, that doesn't mean the line between students and content needs to be direct. I have mostly moved away from questions that have only one specific answer and am using more meaty, rubric-based, and open-ended questions to assess whether
1-28-14 The Whole Child Blog - ED Pulse Poll Results: Will a Longer School Day and Year Better Prepare Students for Success? — Whole Child Education
ED Pulse Poll Results: Will a Longer School Day and Year Better Prepare Students for Success? — Whole Child Education: THE WHOLE CHILD BLOGED Pulse Poll Results: Will a Longer School Day and Year Better Prepare Students for Success?January 28, 2014 by Kit Harris, ASCD ResearchASCD continually seeks to provide solutions to the challenges that face educators of all levels. A recentASCD SmartBrief ED