"Not all students realize the importance of believing in effort" (Pitler et al, 2007, p. 155). The authors of this book show the ways that a teacher can demonstrate expectations and collect and interpret data on students' effort. By the educator providing feedback on assignments/behaviors, the students are receiving a form of operant conditioning to either reinforce or redirect a student's effort.
I have my students draw diagrams of scientific concepts and I always tell them that I grade on effort. I know what a child's best work looks like and I grade accordingly to his/her effort on the assignment. For instance, a student who reproduces a diagram exactly will not get full credit if turning in a stick person. I am specific on ways that students could put forth more effort on the assignment and students are reinforced when doing well by getting a high grade on the assignment. I do not, however, find the need to graph and calculate the percentages of effort put forth by the students. It seems like a large waste of time that does not directly benefit the students.
The overall theme of this week's lesson can be summarized as teacher commentary. When it comes to homework and practice, "If homework is assigned, it should be commented upon" (Pitler et al, 2007, p. 187). This also can be considered as part of operant conditioning depending on the comments made by the teacher.
It seems like common sense to provide feedback for a child on every assignment; however, a trend that I see many times is no comment on a paper that received a perfect score. These students should be receiving positive reinforcement for their excellent work. It does take more time when grading papers, but I find that the students care more about assignments because they want to receive a positive note from me. Also, when writing commentary, it is important to be specific on what the child needs to improve or did well. For instance, a teacher could write "needs more effort" but the child does not know which aspect of the assignment needed more. Or instead of "good job" an educator should tell the student specifically what s/he did well.
Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
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Sarah,
ReplyDeleteI like your comment about being more specific when it comes to making comments on a graded paper. I'm curious as to why you feel that tracking students' effort does not benefit them?
I suppose it is because I do not know of any strategies to help students who show a lack of effort. Can you help me in that area?
ReplyDeleteSarah,
ReplyDeleteI agree with your statements about using technology to help us rather than give us more work to do. Specifically, it would be nice if each school had a specialist who could teach students and teachers how to use the technology. This way the teachers would simply create time in the schedules to allow students to track themselves, rather than use content planning time to teach how to use a technological tool.
Charis Jones