My daughter cheers on a competitive all-star cheer team. Recently, her team finished their last competition, which oddly was scheduled three weeks before the practice season actually ended. Competitions are always great. It's the time to give your all for the performance and share what the team has been working on for months. Hard work is rewarded with cheering and excitement from the fans. Parents love seeing kids give it their all on a stage or field. The competition ended on a high note, and that day really could have been the end of the season for the girls.But practice continued the next week as scheduled since parents had paid for three more weeks. It was my turn to carpool that next practice after the competition. Usually the girls are so excited on the way to practice, chatting about the routine and everything they hope to be able to do by the competition.
But today was different. The car was quiet and felt like it was filled with deflated balloons. Instead of the usual chatter, they started complaining. "This is stupid. Why do we have to keep going to practice if there are no more competitions?"
I tried to convince them that it's about continuing to grow in their skills and if anything, being healthy and getting a good workout. No matter what I said, in typical teenage girls style, they weren't buying it. And them in my mom-voice, it came down to, "We paid a lot for this, so you are going until the end!"
The car was quiet again and I started to think about school. How do our students feel when they are learning something if they don't see a purpose? Learning to just learn isn't motivating enough for them anymore. How can we be creative and capture their passion? It doesn't have to be a huge event on a stage with lights and screaming fans. But how can we create a sense of purpose to learning?
The key is sharing. Are they completing a project for the teacher to grade and hand back, and nothing more? Or can we push them? Celebrations of learning, inviting others to be an audience in the classroom, showcasing their work publicly, and connecting with others online all give a purpose to their efforts. When kids have a purpose, they perform with more passion and effort. Can it be a little scary to share what you have learned with others...yes! But the feedback they receive and the smiles of pride on their faces after they share make it worth it! As adults, they will need to be able to create work they can share with others for evaluation and feedback. Our students need a purpose to be motivated. Otherwise, what is the point?
I agree. One of my most successful classroom projects was when we paired with a class outside of our district to share our projects via Google docs and Hangout. Authentic audiences are powerful for students. Thanks for this post!
ReplyDeleteThat was a great experience! Thanks for sharing!
DeleteI also agree with using outside resources for the duration of a unit because it allows the students to receive feedback and hear other perspectives. Another possible way to motivate students is to ask them what they want to take away from the unit and what they want to get out of the unit presented to them! This could be as simple as creating a poster that is referred to throughout the unit, or even a little daily phrase that is said with the students--as long as they have some ownership!
ReplyDeleteLove this idea, thanks you!
DeleteForgive my typo! Won't let me edit. Thank you!
DeleteJenny, I love how you incorporate personal stories into your posts as inspiration for the topic at hand. As for the content of today's post--I couldn't agree more. Even just providing kids the opportunity to share among their peers within any given class period is important. This itself incentivizes most of the kids.
ReplyDeleteThanks Kristin! I love seeing this motivation first hand in your classes! The deadlines and the authentic audience of the Firebird Feed project and the "When Stars Collide" playwright project are great examples of motivating kids to push themselves to produce something great. They do it not necessarily for the letter grade, but because they know their audience is counting on them!
DeleteAs a parent, I really appreciate these kinds of connections between "school" learning and life's "extracurricular" learning. Giving kids opportunities to learn, practice, get feedback, revise, perform and then celebrate is the best. Whether it's at school in math class, on the soccer field, the stage or at home learning how to make pancakes...our kids need more experiences learning in this way. Great post!
ReplyDeleteI just did a PD session with our staff on this very topic! The motivation of an audience other than the teacher can be phenomenal. Alan November has a great article about this as well:http://novemberlearning.com/educational-resources-for-educators/teaching-and-learning-articles/write-teacher-publish-world/
ReplyDeleteTo be quite honest this is one of the reasons my family moved into international education. Not that everything is perfect in international schools, but there isn't a month of post standardized end of year testing to deal with. That was always such a struggle for me as a classroom teacher in North Carolina.
I look forward to reading more about how you help keep students motivated with authentic learning experiences.
I notice a difference in the pride that my students take in their work when we have Writing Celebrations. Not only do they get the opportunity to share their work with their peers, but I give them the option of choosing how they share it. I can see that they appreciate the fact that that they aren't simply turning a paper in for a grade.
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