Assignment #4: Complete the 4 part assignment format as you read, reflect, and respond to Chapter 4 – Reinforcing Effort and Providing Recognition.
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A. Self Assessment of Current Beliefs and Practices: This component asks you to reflect on how and why you currently use the instructional strategies of Reinforcing Effort and Providing Recognition in your classroom. The intent of this is to activate your prior knowledge of your strategy use so that you can make comparisons as you read the chapter. Below are the questions to help you complete your self-assessment.
• This chapter discusses the potential influence of reinforcing students' effort and providing recognition for their accomplishments. Think back to your own personal experiences and try to identify situations in which your learning was positively influenced when someone reinforced your effort or recognized your accomplishments in some significant way. You might also remember situations that would have been improved if someone had reinforced your effort or had given you recognition.
• Now try to remember examples of situations that you positively influenced because you did reinforce students' effort or provide recognition.
• How do you currently reinforce students’ effort in your classroom and what is your purpose?
• What makes reinforcing effective or ineffective?
• Although verbal recognition seems to be most effective, providing concrete tokens (e.g., stickers, candy, toys) can also be effective. What advice would you give to a new teacher about using tokens as rewards?
B. Read & Reflect “Research & Theory”:This portion of the assignment asks you to read chapter 4 and reflect briefly on your thinking after reading the “Research and Theory” section for both reinforcing effort and providing recognition. You may want to consider reflecting on the bulleted comment below.
C. Practice: Choose one of the specific “classroom practice” strategies or techniques shared in this chapter to teach to your students (If you are not currently teaching, you may share how you would use this strategy in your classroom). You may want to consider reflecting on the bulleted comment below. Please post a brief reflection of how this went to the posting labeled Week Four: Reinforcing Effort and Providing Recognition. Click on the “comment” link below.
• This chapter recommends the use of rubrics to help students see the relationship between their effort and their achievement. Try to identify a specific long-term, challenging assignment that might be enhanced by using these rubrics.
D. Final Strategy Reflection: Use the following sequence of questions/promps to reflect on what you’ve learned about both the strategies presented in the chapter and what you’ve learned about yourself as both a teacher and a learner. Please post your brief reflection to the posting labeled Week Four: Reinforcing Effort and Providing Recognition by clicking on the “comment” link below.
How has the information you read in this chapter on summarizing affected your thinking about teaching and learning? What have you learned about yourself as a teacher and learner? You may use some of the following questions to assist you in writing a brief strategy reflection:
• How might I change how I reinforce students’ effort in my classroom?
• What is something you now understand better about reinforcing effort or providing recognition?
• How might you change how you provide recognition in your classroom?
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Cassandra Russell
Assignment #4
Part C:
After reading this section of the text, I know that I need to spend more time reviewing the goals that are set by my students throughout the year. We currently set performance goals at our initial conferences, but we do not spend time reviewing them periodically throughout the year; we discuss as we near the end of the year. We do goal setting in writing, reading, and math very often, which will give me many great opportunities to review these goals and celebrate with my students.
I would also like to use the Effort and Achievement rubric mentioned in the text on many general classroom assignments so that students can begin to see the connect between their effort and achievement on completed tasks. Our long term research project regarding the United States would be enhanced greatly by the use of a rubric, as there are multiple, detailed, steps to the process. In this assignment, students choose a state, complete research, outline and write a research report, give a speech, create a brochure for their state, and produce a visual aid for their speech. Students keep their work in a classroom portfolio, which would provide a great way for me to review the portfolio and utilize the rubric at each stage in the process. Knowing that we would be looking for and reviewing all pieces for best effort will motivate students, and demonstrate to them how much their effort will impact their achievement in each step of the process.
Part D:
There are several aspects of my teaching that I would like to change based on these ideas. To begin, I realize that I need to be more conscious of the praise that I give, and avoid ineffective and “uniform” praise that does not speak specifically or meaningfully to what the student has actually done. I think that the daily “Good job!” comes out a little too easily and means nothing concrete to students.
As I mentioned above, students have many opportunities to set very specific goals for themselves throughout the year, and I need to spend more time reviewing their goals with them, as well as celebrating the success of meeting those goals. This will help students to feel that they have achieved something, as well as let them see (through the use of rubrics) that their effort will result in achievement. I have notes that I send home when I see a positive behavior from a student in the classroom. I would like to incorporate these notes in the way in which I celebrate the meeting of a goal in any area; the note can be sent home to let families know that their student has worked hard and achieved something important!
I now better understand the fact that students may not view success as being a result of their effort. As the text mentioned, this is an obvious idea to adults, and something that I often assume students understand fairly well. I see that students need to be shown some examples of this relationship both from the world around them and their own lives as well. The idea of using extrinsic motivators has also been clarified; I have been very resistant to this, as I have previously believed that students at my grade level need to be working toward complete intrinsic motivation. I am glad to know that some extrinsic rewards are positive and fun motivators for students and will not be damaging to the development of their internal motivation.
C. This fall, I’m going back to teaching IB French in high school again and I really like the example mentioned on p. 59. The IB program can be very stressful for students as the final exams are very high stakes tests that have a huge impact on their future university studies. Kids tend to get very nervous and I like the idea of having short quizzes followed by small rewards like stickers, etc. I have found that high school students really like to get stickers and small things like that even at their age. I like how the “ceremony” lightened things up for the students and perhaps relieved some of their stress and therefore they may have achieved better scores as a result.
D. I already try to explicitly teach and exemplify the connection between effort and achievement, but I know that I could do a better job in doing so more consistently. I also could encourage the students more to identify their own examples of times where they or someone else were successful with sustained effort. I really like the rubrics for effort and achievement in Figure 4.2 and see how these should be added to rubrics already used in assessments. It provides the students an opportunity for self-reflection that is invaluable. I now see how important it can be for students to keep track of their own effort and achievement that can really help their own intrinsic motivation for improvement. I am going to try to be more aware of the guidelines for effective praise as shown in Figure 4.5. I think that I do a pretty good job of doing most of the “effective” praise guidelines, but it’s good to come back to that chart to refresh myself from time to time. Also, I want to improve on the “Pause, Prompt, and Praise” strategy and use it more often in my classroom. I can see how this is very empowering to students and can be a huge motivator for them to improve.
“Belief in effort”. When you read these things in these pedagogical books, you often have to think to yourself, ‘Humph no kidding.’ The reality is what you think that means for your students and therefore, your teaching practice. For one thing, it means that I am always going to write my tests from my own study guides and take my own tests before giving them out to students. I cannot tell you how often it was when I was a kid that it seemed if I studied the guide given by a teacher, it was really a misdirection that would have been better ignored. Wow, how that undermined my belief in effort. I have seen this effect at work in so many middle school kids I have worked with as well. Either the test given a kid is teacher-made or does not match the book-made study guide or vice versa. Therefore, it would get these kids in a real quandary, who believed they simply did not have what it took to pass a subject: a real belief in their ability to learn and pass. One of the keys I found to helping kids out of this predicament was to have them ask the kids who seemed to get good grades effortlessly how they did it. Nine times out of ten, they would say that they never studied the way the teacher told them, but would study from notes taken during lecture. The truth is sometimes kids need to learn to study what teachers really mean as opposed to what they say. It is a pet peeve of mine as I am sure you can tell.
Also in my own teaching, I plan to use the figure 4.2 on page 52 “Effort and Achievement Rubric.” I have started this year in my teaching to coach kids to work in my math class using deep practice. That is to do each math problem for correctness and accuracy, to analyze their mistakes in their thinking when they got the wrong answer and to challenge themselves to do problems that are a little harder as they become more confident with a method. This had a wonderful effect on all my students and we saw our MAP scores improve above that of the other 6th grade math class. All of this really did work to imbue them with a belief in effort.
How I might change how I reinforce achievement in my classroom?
I think that I may have the kids keep their own scores for effort before summative and formative tests and their outcomes on a graph and then have them write plans for their next test.
What is something that you now understand better about reinforcing effort?
I guess the concept that you need to be careful not to be random but systematic when giving reinforcement is important. In the past, sometimes I have misunderstood the reason kids didn’t respond well to “good job” statements. It seems that I should have been more systematic about it.
How might you provide recognition in your classroom?
I would like to have the principal involved and have students earn extra freedoms and responsibilities for achievement.
I agree; I am now thinking about ways in which I can be more systematic in my way of reinforcing student effort, as well as incorporating ways for them to track their own effort and progress. These factors seem to be key in fostering meaningful engagement for students in their own achievement.
Thanks for your comments Cassandra, Gina, and Jeff.
Cassandra – I do think it would be a great idea to use a rubric with your larger research project on the U.S. I think that kids need to have a clear understanding of what the expectation of a particular assignment is (this would be laid out in the rubric) in order to put in the correct amount of effort necessary to achieve a high score. It is so important to meet more frequently with students to manage and “check-in” with their goals…but it is also so very difficult to manage our time and “marching” curriculums. It’s all about balance!!! I find that the best way especially in reading and writing…it so continuously assess goals with students during conferring.
Gina – Is the IB French course what places them in college language courses? It’s funny isn’t it that even high schoolers appreciate the small and silly gestures that acknowledge achievement. I also especially like the idea of students in high school being able to self-reflect and monitor their own effort and achievement…this will be an important life-long skill.
Jeff – I would have loved to have more teachers that shared your test giving philosophy in high school! I also agree that giving students the opportunity to analyze errors in more challenging math work, is a much greater learning opportunity than simply receiving a grade of either incorrect or correct on any given problem. Congrats on the higher test scores :)
Reinforcing Effort and Providing Recognition
C.
One of the classroom practice strategies I would like to use in my classroom is the Personalizing Recognition (p. 58). I like the idea of taking the personal goal to the next step. We spend time at our school setting personal goals, but never really recognize those students who achieve their goals. I also like the idea of calling the goals “Ambitious Personal Achievement Goals”. I think it would help students focus on the fact that they are going to need to work hard to achieve their goal. Publicly recognizing those students with some kind of “Personal Best” Honor Role would be great. I like the idea of posting that list in the hall with the honor role list that is already there. I also think it would be a great addition to our recognition assemblies.
D.
Something I better understand about reinforcing effort or providing recognition is that rewards need to be given for accomplishing specific performance goals. I also better understand that many students don’t understand the relationship between effort and achievement, and that students need to be explicitly taught this relationship. In my classroom, I want to make sure that I am explicitly teaching that relationship. I would also like to bring in examples of people who achieved because they didn’t give up. I plan to change how I reinforce students’ effort in my class by being more aware of the praise I am giving. Also, I want to make sure I am reviewing the Effective Praise Guidelines and keeping those in mind as I give praise. The Effort and Achievement Rubrics is something else I would like to introduce to my students. A change I may make in how I provide recognition in my classroom is to do more goal setting and then publicly recognize those students who have achieved their goal. This seems like it could be especially important with my Double Dose students.
The IB diploma is crucial for some students depending on which country they are going to university in. Their scores on their individual classes and their overall score determines what sort of credit they receive from the university for the courses as Higher Level (HL) classes will usually result in college credit for them. IB is becoming more popular in the US and is huge overseas in international schools as well as other private schools in many countries. Even students who don't need to do it to get into university in the country that they want to study in often take courses for certificate or the whole diploma for the challenge and college preparation that IB affords.
C. Practice: I agree that one of the most important things we can teach students is that “the harder you try, the more successful you are.” Once they learn that truth it can be applied to many different factions of their lives. I’ve shared with students my belief that in school, what distinguishes those students who are successful from those who have less success is primarily their effort and the skills they’ve developed for learning. I share with them my own story of learning how to be a better student. However, I’ve never had students assess their own effort over any lengthy period of time and I really like that idea. My English 9 students write a research paper on a career that interests them. The rubric for the paper is broken into many different steps and it would be interesting to have students use the Effort and Achievement Rubric to self assess after each step. I definitely believe that being mindful of the link between trying and succeeding is motivational. I also think that taking the time to look at and discuss one’s progress, particularly receiving positive recognition for some specific aspect of what you’ve done, is motivational.
I like the idea of beginning the year with a lesson on effort. I could have my English 9 students journal about what effort means to them and talk about times in their lives where they put forth effort on something and it paid off. In groups they could brainstorm a list of as many stories, as they can think of, showing that putting forth effort results in achievement. In addition to using personal stories they could use examples from movies, cartoons, children’s books, etc. I’m also toying with the idea of having students keep an effort journal in which they make a weekly entry. In it they could write about something specific in class that they put good effort in that week. It would be interesting to have them set a goal for how hard they will try and then assess how they did at the end of the period. Giving a numeral value between 1 and 10 to their effort and then having them assess and plot it would also be interesting to try. Taking time to make students mindful of what their effort is and how that effort relates to their performance seems like a valuable way to focus.
D. Final Strategy Reflection: I could do a lot more to reward student effort in my classroom. We have a positive referral form that we can use at a school wide level to recognize students. I think that I should try to use this at least monthly to recognize a student from each of my 6 classes who has demonstrated some specific form of good effort. In the past, students have been very interested to hear who received recognition and what they received it for. This chapter really made me think about the importance of recognizing good effort through thoughtful, personal comments. I want to copy the Guidelines for Effective Praise and tape it into my lesson plan book and read it once a week to remind myself of the details around what effective praise looks like. This could serve as a reminder to be more mindful about using effective praise on a daily basis. The better I can become at consciously and consistently using effective praise, the better effort I will see out of my students. I spend many hours trying to prepare engaging lessons and I need to spend more conscious effort on trying to motivate students to put forth good effort through my recognition of it. I like the idea of using some concrete symbols of recognition. Even high school students like silly little stickers and I should use them more to recognize good effort/work. I now have a better understanding of the importance of keeping alive a discussion around effort, having students self assess their own effort and the consistent use of praise.
Chuck Camp
Assignment #4
C.
It’s very hard to overlook the advantages of the Effort and Achievement Rubrics. I’ve found that the majority of students are really quite honest about their own effort given to a task. I often sit one on one with the student, their completed task, and the criteria sheet they had before they started. As they show me their work and explain what they did and how they feel they performed it’s eye-opening for them and lends itself too setting an improvement goal on the next task. The Rubric expands upon what I already do and lays it out in no uncertain terms. My class will be studying the Oregon Trail this year and the unit has a number of extended tasks that they finish over the course of the unit. I can see using the Rubric or a modified version of it for their self evaluation of meeting the criteria and also as a mid-way On Schedule evaluation.
D.
One of the largest walls I personally have to climb is being consistent in what I do in class. Then again if it’s something that’s important to the students, they won’t let me forget, especially something that happens periodically. In the last example on page 59, I liked the way this teacher gave out silly, meaningless prizes, and yet the students were very receptive because the award ceremony was not about the prizes, but instead it was all about the celebration of their successes. After reading this I thought I could develop a Lottery Game, 10 and 11 year olds love games, as do I, and with their individual or even whole class successes they can earn a lottery ticket or ‘Lootery Ticket’ for a drawing at the end of the month. Making a big deal for earning the ticket would provide the immediate recognition. I’m certain this would be consistent, because I’ll have 28 reminders. The prizes here would also be more on the silly side to promote the celebration over the actual prizes.
Thanks Heidi, Colleen, and Chuck for your comments on Assignment Four. Heidi – I think you are absolutely right – I’m sure many of us could do a better job of recognizing when students reach their personal goals – I think it would definitely push students to give more effort. I also like the fact that each student would be able to reach his or her individual goals with effort (unlike actually getting Honors or High Honors), this is inclusive for ALL students! Colleen – I think your students would really benefit from keeping an effort journal…and you may even want to have them discuss their progress towards their goals as Heidi wrote about above. Chuck – I loved your idea of developing a Lottery Game that will celebrate their successes – and I think I would be a good idea to keep things light and silly so that the real purpose would be celebrating their academic successes and effort.
Chapter 4:
Part C:
I really enjoyed reading this chapter because I am always looking for different and better ways to reinforce effort in my class and to provide recognition to my students. This can be one of the trickier things to do as a teacher because you don't want to do it to little but I don't you want to overdo it either. When I read the section on the effort and achievement rubric bells and whistles went off in my head. What a great idea this is. I immediately thought how this could be very beneficial to my 5th grade class. As it said in the book that this is such a powerful way to help student make the connection between effort and achievement. I love how students can keep track for themselves. This rubric would also allow students to be able to really reflect on there effort and achievement which can be so powerful when they can see it in concrete terms.
Part D:
Again the one thing that jumps out at me is that this has to be taught explicitly. Showing students that there is a connection between effort and achievement can be so powerful for students, we can't be afraid to teach it. As teacher we can't be afraid to share personal examples to exemplify this point. I feel like I do a good job in class in talking about others who don't give up and sometimes I think my students make the connection but I also realize I need to be more explicit for those that don't make the connection. I feel like I do a good job of provide recognition in my classroom but this chapter gave me some other ideas , like the pause, prompt and praise. I need to do a better job of not just giving verbal praise but do a better job of providing concrete tokens of recognition on a more consistent basis.
Thanks Rhett – I agree…it is so important to explicitly explain to students the effect their effort has on their achievement. This hit home for me as well…sort of that ah-ha moment. I think adding the personal touch of using one of your own examples would be great!
I like Heidi’s idea for creating a Personal Best Honor Roll. I agree that celebrating student success in reaching their personal goals is important, and for some necessary, to the process of getting students to put forth their best effort. I also strongly agree with Rhett that it is important to keep alive in students minds the connection between effort and achievement. Finally, I really like the idea of creating a game around celebrating class successes. I think that lottery game would work well with my 9th grade students.
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