Inquiry Proposal

 

Motivate from Within…

 

How can we teachers inspire students to be intrinsically motivated to participate in class, hand in quality assignments and perform well on tests?

 

My inquiry question will continue to expand and evolve throughout my career.

 

How did this question arise for me? Is my question linked to me personally? Yes, probably because when I was in Elementary school my grades were very good, mostly A’s, which is interesting because I was never motivated by grades. I was lucky enough to have parents who weren’t extremely “grade focused.” I was motivated by my own interest in learning and discovery, which is intrinsic motivation and according to the Woolfolk, “…intrinsic motivation has numerous advantages over extrinsic motivation. Intrinsically motivated children are eager to learn classroom material, willingly tackle assigned tasks, use effective learning strategies, and achieve at high levels.” (Woolfolk p. 401) Then I moved on to Middle school and my grades began to slip; I felt a kind of pressure to perform that was foreign to me. I didn’t like this pressure. I now had low self-efficacy, which is the belief “…in one’s capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to produce a given assignment.” (Woolfolk p. 41) I didn’t understand the assignment so I thought I couldn’t do it. I felt overwhelmed, like I was being taught things beyond my ZPD (zone of proximal development), I began to shut down and completely miss assignments because I thought they were too complicated. I should say my attendance was very good; my parents cared that I could get to school on time more than they did about my grades. I began to lose track of my motivation, these activities weren’t fun, I didn’t understand why I was doing them, and they were stressing me out, so what was my motivation? I guess to pass, beyond that I didn’t understand why I would do any better when I don’t see the importance of the activity. My motivation was now extrinsic, to get a passing grade. My attitude only got worse when I went to a large anonymous dilapidated high school with duct tape holding the floor together and signs warning of asbestos in the walls (the school was tore down a few years after I left luckily). My motive now was to see how few classes I could attend and still maintain a passing grade.

My inquiry question is partially inspired by the text for ESPE 308: Human Development, Learning, and Diversity (Human development, learning, and diversity). Especially from one particular case study where two girls are making kites, one girl wants her kite to fly the other wants to get a passing grade, they both achieve their goals, the girl who only wanted to get a passing grade did not create a kite capable of flight, but that wasn’t in the rubric.

My inquiry question will no doubt greatly influence my teaching style and overall philosophy. I want to be the kind of teacher that helps their students want to do their work for the sake of the knowledge they gain and a sense of accomplishment that goes along with completing a task. Because of my inquiry question my teaching style will constantly be changing to meet the needs of the students. One class may be motivated in a certain way but the next class may not be motivated the same way. This is why I will attempt many different, multimodal teaching techniques. I expect to find that writing and executing great lesson plans that get the students engaged and moving around the class teaching each other while playing a game of some kind ideally will motivate students intrinsically, but this may not work for all students, and these students will be offered a worksheet to complete instead. I hope this would prompt the student to join in, but that’s ok if it doesn’t, sometimes people aren’t feeling very social.

Here are some of my answers to standard teaching philosophy building questions:

 

What does a successful learning situation look like?
-Students are engaged: meaning they are looking at the teacher and listening when appropriate and working productively most of the time.

 

Why do I believe these things about learning?
-It seems intuitive that engaged happy students will learn better than disengaged disgruntled students, so a cohesive cooperative community in the classroom is idea.

 

What are my values, beliefs and aspirations as a teacher?
-I want to be the type of English teacher that teaches! Educates, and shows results. Knowing I affected someone’s ability to communicate is something I am proud of. Many problems in the world can be solved with better communication.

 

What do I hope my students will experience and achieve in my class?
-I hope they learn about themselves and the world around them currently.

 

What kind of rapport do I want to have with my students?
-Mutual respect, not friendship, but friendly and mentor like.

 

What do I believe about assessment of learning?
-There should be self assessment, peer assessment, teacher assessment for a completion mark as well as some teacher assessment for a mark /100%

 

Bibliography:

 

Woolfolk, A. Human development, learning, and diversity: EPSE 308 2015-2016 (3rd custom for UBC ed.)