Chapter
12 focuses on motivation in learning and teaching. This is super important to
me, as I need motivation everyday to do homework after work. I can relate to
some of the scenarios in the book, about students not being motivated enough to
do their own work. I have always been bad at math, and when I tried to do my
homework, I was never interested. It's important for students not to feel like
I did, so they can actually do their homework and succeed in school.
There
are two types of motivation: intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation is
the natural human tendency to seek out and conquer challenges as we pursue
personal interests and exercise our capabilities (Woolfolk, 431). This means
that one is doing something that is out of their personal interests, not
because there is a reward or punishment at the end. This could be if you
learned something in class and it interested you, therefore you took out a book
to further your knowledge on it.
The
next type is called extrinsic motivation. Extrinsic is motivation created by
external factors such as rewards and punishments (Woolfolk, 431). This is where
someone is simply doing an assignment, just so they can get a better grade
and/or to avoid failing a class. This is something I have always experienced in
my math class. I was constantly on the verge of failing, which was the only
reason I did my homework.
So
to avoid this happening for students, teachers have to create ways and lots of
encouragement, so their student's will not feel un-motivated. It's important
for us to create goals, so students have something to strive for or to
complete. Goal setting improves direct attention, energizes effort, increases
persistence, and promotes the development of new knowledge and strategies when
old strategies fall through (Woolfork, 438).
Chapter
14 focuses on teaching every student. This relates to chapter 12, because
teachers are required to provide goals to their students, to be successful.
Providing goals for students are called objectives. A man by the name Benjamin
Bloom developed a classification system of educational objectives. He divided
them into three domains: cognitive, affective, and psychomotor. Bloom's system
also included six basic objectives: knowledge, comprehension, application,
analysis, synthesis, and evaluation (Woolfolk, 515). This classification is
important, because it provides teachers help in planning assessments for their
students.
Chapter
15 was (in my opinion) the most important chapter out of the three, because it
talks about assessments and grading. Tests are said, "to help teachers
make better instructional decisions." (Woolfolk, 549). This is huge for
future teachers to know and understand. To begin with, there are two functions
for assessment: formative and summative. Formative occurs before or during
instruction. This helps the teacher in planning and improving instruction.
Summative occurs at the end of instruction. This is supposed to help teachers
and students know the level of accomplishment attained (Woolfolk, 549). There
are many different kinds of tests, really too many to list. But when preparing
a test, it is important to know what assessment bias is. In other words, it is wording
your questions so that everyone could understand and not be offended by their
race, gender, religion, and etc. One word may mean something to one person and
mean something else to another. As teachers, it is important for us to know
that. The last thing, we would want is to offend our students, especially when
we are serving as role models to them. Or worse have them fail a test, and lose
their motivation! It is said that we use grades to motivate our students.
Overall, the chapter concludes that quality teaching and quality assessment
share the same basic principles. In order to have good instruction and good
grading depend on:
-Being
aware of and responds to student differences. (i.e. assessment bias)
-Specifies
clear learning outcomes.
-Uses
pretests and formative assessments to monitor student progress.
-Adapts
instruction in a variety of ways so students can continue to progress (couldn't
have said it better myself).
-Makes
sure students know the criteria for success.
-Provides
varied forms of assessment. (Woolfolk, 583).
