Chapter two of Rick Wormeli’s Meet me in the Middle discusses different strategies we can use in the classroom to help motivate middle school students. Early in the chapter Wormeli states that “trying to get the students to pay attention is eighty percent of the battle.” This battle is one that some teachers spend their whole careers losing. The battle does not have to be that hard. All of us enjoy doing things that we’re good at and interests us. The classroom should not be any different. Educators who take the time to get to know and understand their students have half the battle already won. When you understand what makes the students go, you can apply that into the classroom and lessons. Lessons should be made around all the students’ interests, with a wide variety of activities that also allow them to use their strengths. Communication with the students is essential to create a great lesson, asking them for feedback and giving it back helps improve the classes drastically. The environment is also extremely important. Supplying a safe and comfortable atmosphere that encourages the students to learn and be themselves helps the students to open up their minds and abilities. The last and one of the most important concepts is to show enthusiasm for the material, and the students learning it. When you show enthusiasm, it opens the door for the students to be enthusiastic as well. If the students are excited about being in your classroom, then motivation becomes very simple.
As a class, we all agreed that the chapter was very beneficial. Some of us were reading this type of material for the first time, while others agreed that it was a good refresher from previous education courses. We all felt that to meet the students’ needs, and supply the best classroom possible, we needed to follow the themes and concepts of the chapter. We found it interesting that teachers spend more of their time dealing with classroom management then with actual teaching. There was no doubt that building a relationship and getting to know the students was the first and most important element, not only for helping the teachers spend less time with management, but motivation as well. Understanding all the students’ personality, strengths, learning styles, and interests helps design a lesson that will meet the whole classes needs. To go along with that, it is important to spice things up. Most of us agree that students get bored with the same outline and style everyday. It’s good to build up suspense, or do something completely out of the ordinary. The students should not be the only ones involved in these wacky ideas, but we ourselves need to back up our talk and show just how crazy we can be. That not only allows the students to relate with us, but it shows them how enthusiastic we are towards the material and their learning. Giving the students feedback and getting feedback from them was also a popular topic. Some of us remember how frustrating it was in school when teachers waited weeks to hand back a paper or never inform us of what we did wrong or right. To create a comfortable and safe classroom environment we all agreed that combining everything above will allow us to do that, and help prepare the students for a lifetime full of learning.
This is a Wiki on Motivation that Sean and I designed last semester for 402.
12 comments:
The “enthusiasm” link leads to the aps web site. The face article discusses student motivation and what teachers can to help motive them. It gives examples and suggestions on teacher animation. The site leads to several articles on teaching psychology. The” learning styles” link leads to a web site that addresses the multiple intelligences. There is a description of the intelligences and a test to take to see which you are or which best describes you. A fun site that give insight! The Wiki link is the best I have seen it several times before and still find new things each time I highly recommend this link.
really great links! I really like the multiple intelligences link. It would be really neat to use this in your classroom. This way you as a teacher would know how EACH of your students learn! How cool!
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Well to start, the wiki from 402 is probably the greatest wiki on the internet today. Having said that, I thoroughly enjoyed the other links as well. The enthusiasm link had a lot of what we talked about in our motivation wiki and even more information that is helpful. The multiple intelligences link is helpful as well as a refresher for many of us and great, new ideas for other teachers.
I thought that the enthusiasm link was outstanding. In particular, I was impressed with the number of concrete examples within the page. Students, especially at the middle level, suffer from student apathy or lack of motivation so I think this link could be extremely useful. I also loved the multiple intelligences link and jumped at the chance the take the multiple intelligences test. I would definitely have my students take this test at the beginning of the year so that students and myself can learn what multiple intelligence they use the most.
The APS link labeled "enthusiasm" is a great resource, giving teachers tips on how to improve their communication skills and keep kids motivated and eager to learn.
The Multiple Intelligence test could be a fun activity to share with our students to get them thinking about how they learn individually.
This is very interesting seeing that the majority of class agrees that enthusiasm is a key element in the motivation and comfort level of the classroom. The links you gave us where very interesting hopefully I will have some time to take the MI test. Enthusiasm is so essential. Great work.
The enthusiam link leads to a site that discussions the importance of using enthusiasm in the classroom. It is a great link because it shows you that if you have enthusiasm for your subject then your students will as well.
The other links are awesome. The multiple intelligence one is great because you can do that with your students right in the classroom and figure out how to direct your instruction and such. Awesome. Also, I love your wiki.
I like the enthusiasm page because it gives some to do's and some not to do's. There are also some good tips on how to motivate the students. It talks about body language and tone in your voice. These are some things that teachers might not normally think about, but they are helpful hints. I also like the motivation link because it gives you a test to see how you are at motivating and to see if you can be successful at this. The video is good because it shows that motivation is universal and can be portrayed even with language barriers.
by: Angela L.
I did the MI test, and it was a quick and easy way to find out I'm Naturalistic and Intra-personal. That could be a great way to get to know our students without having to take much time, especially where they could all print off their charts. The Wiki also has some good videos.
I really like the multiple intelligences site, especially the test. It looks like something that could be used in a classroom to identify how your students learn, while at the same time telling them that they are all smart, just in different ways. I thought your Wiki was awesome, with a lot of great videos, cartoons, and data on how motivation can hurt or help students.
I really like the multiple intelligence link. Students will be a lot more willing to take that test online then if you ask them to take it by paper and pencil. Good job!
I'm glad the class shared my interest in enthusiasm in the classroom. I really like the link about enthusiasm because it goes into more depth about things we can do as teachers to engage students in our classes. Our enthusiasm allows students to feel like they can be excited too. I think using class room space and humor are should be acknowledge in any successful classroom.
Also, Tyler and Sean's wiki about motivation is full of so much information. The video clip we watched was amazing and I agree with Steph when she said "every teacher should watch that clip."
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