Is it hard to motivate?

Motivation and Managing Students for Effective Learning

The third year of study time has come. The first assignment has accosted me in the first week of the fifth semester. Well, no more complain because I do realize that assignment will be my endless partner in my university life. In this semester, I have to learn about “Motivation and Managing Students for Effective Learning”. Based on the name of the course, I do guessing about what I will learn through this semester. In my opinion before attending the class, this course will discuss about on how we can create effective learning for the students through motivating and managing them so the maximum potential of each students can be achieved.

We will see whether the guessing I did is true or false. When I heard the course objective which had been read by lecturer, I found out that there were more than only motivated and managed the students during their study process. We have to know on how we do it, and try to get to know our students well, and then identify what kind of students they are. If we know those things so it will be a little bit easier to create the effective learning. This course will be more interesting because I will learn how to create the effective learning through some theories then try to find the strategies and approaches to do it.

The effective learning can be created if the parties who are involved in the classroom can support each others. There are teacher and students who will have interaction in the classroom. Therefore, each of them should know how to act. A teacher will be the one who will guide the students to achieve the objective learning. It is expected that students will get something more than only just lesson in the classroom. The teacher should be able to motivate the students when they are in the critical condition like do not have passion to study. The teacher should be able to manage the classroom so positive environment can be there.

Basically, the teacher will be assigned as a model and the people who know everything in the classroom so the students will rely on the teacher.  So if the teacher could guide the students well in exploring the journey of life, it will be great for the students in stepping the next level of life. If the teacher can take heart of each student it will be easier to direct the students to get better future. When I was asked, what kind of teacher do you like? I will answer the inspiring teacher because that teacher will give me not only the lesson but also the value of life. Therefore, I was most motivated when I have the inspiring teachers who can show me the right path of life. I was unmotivated when I got nothing from the lesson I joined. This will be the great challenges for the educators in the 21st century on how we can inspire our students.

It will be the duty of the teachers to motivate the students so the students can have passion to study because they are motivated. From my personal opinion, motivation is simply the desire of the people to do something they want because when they can get what they want, satisfaction will come to them. I have learnt about theoretical views of motivation through group discussion. These theoretical views have broadened my knowledge about what the motivation actually is. I hope what I learnt in the college can be applied in the real situation in the future. Over all, this course is nice and I will put more attention into this course because this will increase my skill in being a teacher. 

Picture was taken from: http://doubleyourgains.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/success.jpg

How to create 4 climate variables in the classroom?

Climate Variables

In the previous meeting, I did the enrichment on how I can create the positive environment in the classroom so the students will have high motivation towards the subject I teach. I learnt some new things to build the constructive classroom. To create that way, it will need the actors of classroom, those are teacher and the students. There are 4 variables that can create the positive environment: Order and Safe, Success, Challenge and Task Comprehension. Here, I try to explain those variables as follow.

Order and Safe

Order and safe relate to the students’ autonomy in the classroom. Let them to be independent learners in the classroom and we as a teacher can guide the students to reach the goals. We need to create the safety of the students so they can feel secure in exploring their journey in the classroom. We also need to engage the students in making regulation in the classroom, what do’s and don’ts. Beside of that, the involvement of the students are considered as important one to design what task they want and the teacher should accommodate the students’ request. When I was in senior high school I often got threat from my teacher so I felt insecure and in the end it made me uncomfortable enough to join the class and I did not learn maximally in the class. We have to create the positive environment of learning so the students can reach the maximum level of learning.

Success

The teacher needs to help the students to achieve the goals of the learning. The process to get success means big for the improvement of the students. The students need the guidance of the teacher in the process of achieving what we call as the objectives. Sometimes, the students will get difficulties and we as a teacher are suggested to scaffold them so they can reach the objectives of learning. We cannot judge the students by looking at the score they had but we have to see more on how the progress they made. For the example, when they can improve their skill and ability in solving the problems, we can see that as success because there is improvement that has been made by the students. Once more, do not look at the score they had but appreciate on the effort they made to be better than before.

In the School Experience program I observed my master teacher when teaching the students. My master teacher still has paradigm that the students’ success is the core and grade that students produce when they had a test or assignment. My master teacher would only appreciate the students who have high score and ignored them who got lower score. I think it was wrong because the teacher did not appreciate the students who put more effort to make improvement. It would lead the students to have negative attitude towards learning.

Challenge

The teacher needs to give challenging task to the students because it can increase the students’ perceptions towards their ability and skill in accomplishing the task. We should not give the students the difficult task but it is enough with challenging task but we need to scaffold them in accomplishing the task. The teacher should not reduce the standard of the task if the students said that it is too difficult to do for them, the teacher just need to scaffold them.

Task Comprehension

This variable will underline more on how the students could have awareness to do the task. They should know why they need to do the task and what they will get if they can accomplish the task. If the students can have that awareness so they can learn how to be effective learners. Teacher should create the meaningful learning so the students can value their learning in the classroom.

In addition, I also learnt about the TARGET program. There are six TARGET programs that can be applied in the classroom: Task, Authority, recognition, grouping, Evaluation, and Time.

I hope I can create the four climate variables in my classroom so I can explore the journey of learning with my students effectively. It can make feel a real teacher if I can create those climate variables.

The 5th Reflection of TLL

To teach thinking skill through technology is quite hard because it deals with student’s ability in using the target language and their thinking abilities. Sometimes, the students cannot achieve the target language and the thinking abilities in solving problems. Thus, by using technology can enhance their thinking skill. The language learners should be given chances to use high-level-thinking and inquiry-based learning. The inquiry-based learning is bound with the cognitive academic language learning approach (CALLA) in terms of language for supporting language and content learning (Chamot & O’Malley, 1994). Both inquiry-based learning and CALLA has aimed to make the students as a co-constructor of deepened content learning aided by the development of cognitive strategies.

            There are a lot of requirements to use the technology to support thinking. The teachers should give attention in students’ cognitive process because it must be involved in the learning activities. The teachers need to provide the technology tools to support a wide range of thinking and problem-solving opportunities. The teachers should use the tools within the learning approach based on the understanding of inquiry, problem-based learning, and language learning. In the other side, the students need to perform a whole, meaningful task, not sub skill. The tool could bring the burden to students because it scaffolds the elements of the task, so the students cannot finish it alone. The tools bring complex versions of the task for the students.

            Beside of that, the students need to have willingness to understand the engagement of technology in developing their thinking skill. There are three instruction models in designing inquiry-based learning activities. The first one is Bloom’s Taxonomy of the cognitive domain that provides further Web-based information for the example three domains of educational activities – Bloom’s Taxonomy. The second model is Hunter’s Model – Seven step lesson plan which also provide further Web-based information like Hunter Model lesson Plan. The last one is constructivism and social constructivism which provide Web-based information like constructivism and Technology. There is also Webquest which is designed to support thinking and problem solving on the web.

            I just hope by having those kinds of technologies can make us easier to teach thinking skill of the students. It is the advantageous for us as the next generation of educators.

The Micro-teaching Experience

The awesome things happened in the previous meeting of PETA course. One group presented their lesson plan in front of class by using role play. They were a lucky group because they were chosen by lottery. They were great in presenting their lesson plan. I could learn so many things from them to teach my students someday. To be an effective teacher is not as easy as reversing the palm of hand. We need to conduct the effective teaching in the class room. How could I do that in my class? That is the question which comes up in my mind.

After that, Miss Iné spreads some articles about some models of teaching methods to every group. Every member in a group got the different articles. We were given time to read that articles. It was a little bit hard to understand the point of the articles. So, that is way we were asked to discuss the articles with the one who got the same articles. By doing that, we could get the deeper understanding about the articles.

By the way, the articles were about some models of methods in teaching. Thus, by learning those methods we were expected to be able to implement the effective teaching in the class room. After having a discussion with my group, I got four models of teaching methods. Those are Direct Instruction Model, Lecture –discussion Model, Group Interaction Model, and Guided Discovery.

The review in the end of lesson was found in those models. In Guided Discovery Model, the teachers help “scaffolding students”. The teachers guide the students to achieve the objectives. In Lecture-discussion Model, the control is on the teacher when this model was implemented. While, in Direct Instruction Model there is independent learning in the end of lesson.

Resource: The picture was taken from http://www.google.co.id/imgres?q=micro+teaching (November, 17th 2011)

Between Easy and Hard

The second meeting of PETA was very awesome. The lecturer gave us opportunity to watch movie about thematic learning that was implemented in elementary school. I and my team were ordered to find some interesting parts in the movie and find some characteristics of effective teaching and ineffective teaching. This kind of thing was like our practice to assess the learning process in the class. We needed to explain and give prove if we found effective teaching in the class or ineffective teaching.

There were some interesting parts that I remembered.  The first interesting part is the opening, the elementary students just remained me when I was an elementary student too. The way they prayed together was like my praying condition in my elementary school. They had a lot of spirit to learn, their voice is so cohesive, and they looked so ready to study in the class. Then, there was the observation activity outside the class. They felt so happy to observe the rambutan tree together. That is the point, we as the next generation of teacher should create the good atmosphere to our students so they could feel so comfort in our class.

In our previous meeting, we were refreshed again about the Bloom’s Taxonomy. Regarding with that, I memorized the six items of Bloom’s Taxonomy. The first until the third were remembering, understanding, and applying. It was known by LOTS (Low Order Thinking Skills) and the three last items were analyzing, evaluating, and creating that was known by HOTS (High Order Thinking Skills). The Bloom’s Taxonomy was about the six cognitive processes varying in the level of complexity.

The next activity in my previous meeting was my lecturer told us about the twin sins of curriculum. The first is Activity-focused: Hands-on without minds-on that means the teacher only gives the students games or fun activity but no cognitive of students involved. The second is Coverage approach: teach, test, and hope for the best that means the teacher do the monotonous learning process. The teacher only teach the students commonly, then give the test and only hope for the best result of students without doing the best.

In the end of meeting, we needed to make lesson plan about certain subject. This activity trained us as a teacher to analyze the objectives to students, whether the objectives are appropriate or not? We had to think hard because it was not easy. We had to decide it carefully because the making process of basic competence (KD) and competence standard (SK) should think about the students need. We also needed to integrate it with match activity and relate the compatibility and the objectives.

That was great meeting because I can dig deeper to find the principal of effective teaching and assessment. Every meeting could create me to be the effective teacher. It was my expectation.

Resource: The picture was taken from http://www.google.co.id/imgres?q=thematic+learning (November, 17th 2011)