If an educator is aware of their student's emotional intelligence and uses popular culture medium as a tool in their pedagogy, then students will be more engaged in the lesson since it involves their interests, and more confident in themselves because it is building on things that they already know, leading to increased intrinsic motivation, a more comfortable environment and increased learning and critical thinking because the teacher is using a relevant source as a bridge to teach students the skills necessary to learn in the curriculum. It will also engage students and influence them to think critically outside of the classroom about music, films, and other things that interest them.
I think today was a pretty good day of learning. I learned a lot more about Nodding and Duncan-Andrade, and learned a tad about other theorists that are out there. It's interesting to see the connections that my peers make between the different learning theories, and I think benefits my learning a lot.
We learned about a number of new theorists, and I must admit that I'm a little unclear about some still. We learned about Gilligan and how she feels that girls and boys learn differently and are motivated differently. I feel that I can grasp how students learn best - they react well to relational caring, and care about what their peers think. Boys are motivated by "just" and "fairness", but how do you motivate someone in this way? Do you make rules to make it fair? I guess I just have trouble grasping motivation when emotions aren't involved.
I am actually feeling a little unsettled about our presentation on Helm. We explained Helm well and the steps well, and we tried to generate conversation and get the class to relate Helm and Andrade, but I think we should have developed more discussion points than we did. I also wish we had made a list of points that we definitely wanted students to come away with after the discussion. We talked about as a group what we wanted students to say and come up with and where we wanted to go with it, but we didn't execute it completely. I can almost guarantee that in GNA's assessment of today's class, that no one uses Helm as their unknown theorist because they didn't fully grasp the concept and relate it to learning. This makes me really unsatisfied to be honest, but I guess I came away and learned something from it at least - sometimes there is some good in some structure, and I should be prepared for some lulls and to try to direct conversation better.
See ya next week!
Steph,
ReplyDeleteExcellent T2P hypothesis. I'd like to see you incorporate one specific pedagogical practice you intend to employ that you believe will help students experience increased intrinsic motivation. My assessment of your work, including the presentations, is as tough as your own. You are quickly developing the skills to assess the teaching and learning environment from the perspective of the teacher--that's a good thing! Your resultant learning i.e., that when using discussion its a good idea to have some specific points/take-aways/questions is exactly correct in my view. So you did get something out of the exercise, even if you don't believe your learners did. Keep pressing.
As a physics teacher, I will add in activities that allow students to design and build things during a lab. For instance, I am planning to have students do a catapulting lab during school and apply the principles of motion in their design. The student's objective is to hit a target that is a specified distance away, adn they will not get the target location until the day of. Students will get to choose their own materials used to manufacture their catapult. Students will work in groups and compete against each other to see what group designed the most accurate catapult. This lab will make students feel autonomous and in control of their situation which will lend to an increase in intrinsic motivation. It is motivational because of the competition aspect as well. So I think the autonomy is intrinsically motivating, plus it allows students to be creative as well. It's a fun way to teach the principles of motion.
ReplyDelete