Partnership Educators,
My sons all played video games while growing up. Mario Bros was a staple at our house. The boys, who almost all are in the thirties now, still talk about some of the games they used to play and laugh about how long it took them to "beat the game" or "pass a level". It always fascinated me how they would fail over and over again until they made it, with great personal joy by the way. In comparison, my wife and I might start a level and fail a few times until we would give up. I am sure you have had similar experiences. Why would we do that? Truthfully we wouldn't always give up. Sometimes we would keep trying. Most times we would keep trying when we had an expert sitting by our side helping guide us. Who was our expert? Our sons. They certainly had the skill for some of these games at a very high level and could explain how to make it through. With the guide by our side, we felt that we could do it. We no longer saw the task as unachievable.
Achievement and motivation to do things go hand and hand. I am sure you can think of a non-gaming example in your life to illustrate what I was reflecting on above. Weight loss is usually another one that people will think of. The first thing that people need to be motivated is that the task matters or if there is a purpose for doing it. When we value it or see a greater end to the content it helps us with our motivation to do it. Sometimes it is because we have made connections between the content of what we're learning and to ourselves or to other knowledge we know. Other times it is about connections with people we care about and it is relevant to us in some way. When a teacher starts a unit on combustion by lighting things on fire it makes the learning a bit more novel for the student because they may not know what is going to happen. It might also be fun and breach a barrier to something usually reserved for adults. The second item we need is autonomy and the safety to try. With any task novice individuals who are learning are working through their thinking and maybe looking for multiple ways to get at the learning or task. This, in turn, may generate failure. In order to keep trying they need to know that the task is doable and that someone has their back to keep moving on. This is where the supportive expert relationship comes in. Supportive experts help to guide us when we get stuck, lost, or frustrated. We all seek people who know more than us. I read books and talk with people about my interests or just go and stare at someone else's model as you heard last week. I wonder sometimes if the content we teach is only the vehicle to guide students in the greater learning of the Portrait traits.
Motivation is a barrier for some of our students for sure and knowing that people are motivated by having tasks that matter, with built-in autonomy and safety, as well as a supportive expert guiding them can help us know how to build our work. Effort is based on these tenants as well. For the portrait award this week I would like to highlight a Distance Learning teacher who is incorporating all of these features and more within his program.
Communication is the articulation of thoughts and ideas effectively while listening to understand meaning. It also emcompases the use of a range of purposes such as to inform, instruct, motivate, persuade, and for conflict resolution. Congratulations to Michael Barnett for winning the Communication award for the start of this year. His use of daily goal setting with his students sets them up to work for themselves and measure their daily effort. Mike ends each day with a private conversation about their goal for that day and work effort. He reports that students are sometimes brutally honest about their efforts and he rewards them for their honesty and askes permission to challenge them the next day. His techniques seem to follow the research above around motivating students to be better with supportive expert relationship, safety, and tasks that matter.
Thanks to all who are working to challenge our current reality to find better outcomes for our kids.
Thanks for another great week. Enjoy your extended weekend.
Rob