MOTIVATION - Continued

The elements of the model for developing expertise feature five key areas, Metacognition, Knowledge, Motivation, Learning, Thinking (Sternberg, 2005). Each area is fully interactive with influence in either direction. For example, knowledge leads to thinking and further thinking facilitates further knowledge (Sternberg, 2005). At the center of this model is motivation. Without motivaiton all the other key elements would remain static (Sternberg, 2005). Motivation is the driving force for metacognition which triggers learning and thinking which then cycles back to metacognition for review. This cycle demonstrates that the learner who is motivated to seek higher levels of knowledge through increased learning, thinking and metacognition has the ability to go from novice to competent to expert and increase self-efficacy in the particular areas of interest to the learner.
Urdan and Turner (2005) examined the implications for best practice in relation to competence motivation in the classrooms. The authors have included in their definition of competence motivation the concept of mastery. The intention of education is competence and mastery of skills and abilities (Urdan & Turner, 2005). However, some schools are still missing the fact that they are not actually developing competence in certain skill areas but instead focused on only motivating by using token economies and other tangible reward systems to behave well, be punctual or finish assignments (Urdan & Turner, 2005).
Urdan and Turner (2005) investigated key theories in competence motivation that have predominately been researched with an educative framework and application within the classroom. They have reviewed empiracal data for the following theories as they related to K-12 setting; acheivement goals, interest and intrinsic motivation, self-efficacy, expectancy-value theory, self-determinination theory and attribution theory. The authors found both important theoretical implications for the classroom as well as some cautionary advice on applying motivation principles in the classroom due to a lack of research specifically completed within the classroom in the area of competence motivation.

The first theory examined by Urdan and Turner (2005) was the theory of Achievement Goals. The premise of this particular theory states that people will engage or not engage in activities depending on the individual’s purpose for doing so. The individual’s purpose for achievement is referred to as the individual’s goals or goal orientations. Achievement goals are of three types, mastery, performance-approach, and performance-avoidance (Urdan and Turner, 2005).

Mastery goals represent a need to become competent by acquiring skills and through the understanding of new knowledge (Urdan & Turner, 2005). Mastery goals are considered goals that encourage positive feelings, motivation, and learning (Urdan & Turner, 2005). Researchers have stated that classrooms should incorporate more mastery goal structures within the classroom, to advance students effort, persistence, and use of sophisticated cognitive strategies (Urdan & Turner, 2005). Studies have found that teachers who incorporate more mastery goal orientated structures within their classrooms have more students that adopt personal mastery goal orientations, which promote achievement, self-efficacy, and positive affect in school (Urdan & Turner, 2005).

Performance goals are concerned with appearing able or unable to complete particular tasks. Urdan and Turner (2005) state that it is important to recognize that classroom goal structures which come out of a student’s adoption of personal achievement goals in the classroom do not distinguish between the approach and avoidance elements. Performance goal practices within the classroom typically make it obvious who the smarter student is, who is doing well and the comparing of one student to another. Studies have indicated that the more emphasis on performance goals within the classroom the more detrimental to motivational and behavioural variables (Urdan & Turner, 2005). Further research would be required to investigate whether defeated and discouraged youth develop more performance avoidance goals than mastery or performance-approach goals, which may affect competence in the academic setting and lead to a greater risk of leaving school.

Interest and intrinsic motivation are two concepts that play a significant role in competence motivation. People engage in certain activities because they have an individual interest in that particular activity. They also engage in situational activities that require a shorter attention span. Intrinsic motivation occurs without anyone exerting pressure to complete a task or activity. People intrinsically motivated engage in activities because they love the activity and wish to participate. Urdan and Turner (2005) state that intrinsic motivation comes from a variety of sources “the need for competence, interest in the material or activity, or perceptions of autonomy” (pg. 301). Urdan and Turner (2005) suggest that teachers focus on creating an environment that catches and holds pupil’s situational interests as individual interests are vast and varied, through the adaptation of the learning environment.

Self-efficacy is the perception of the skills and abilities of an individual to perform tasks in specific situations (Urdan & Turner, 2005). Students who perceive that they can accomplish a task or activity tend to exert more effort to complete the task and succeed at the activity. Self-efficacy beliefs can be a powerful predictor of achievement within an academic setting and as defined by Bandura (cited by Urdan & Turner 2005) created by “experience, vicarious experience through modelling success and failure, verbal persuasion from a respected source, physical cues” (pg. 302). Defeated and discouraged students need to experience success in activities that they believe they are not competent in, to increase their self-efficacy.

STUDENT MOTIVATION: STARTING POINT FOR LEARNING

School systems have tried to inject billions of dollars into alternative programming to increase academic achievement for defeated and discouraged students (Sagor and Cox, 2004). Sagor and Cox (2004) have stated that little success can be attributed to specific programming and pilot programs designed to help remediate those students experiencing school failure. Why is it so difficult to engage defeated and discouraged learners?

Educators refer to Psychology to investigate those theories that apply to student motivation and behaviour to address students who may be at risk of leaving school early. Many motivational theories can be examined that may be applicable to defeated and discouraged students however one motivational theory that has gained recognition in the past has been developed by Dweck and Elliot (2005) and is referred to as “Acheivement Motivation with Competence as the core” (Dweck and Elliot, 2005: 3).

Dweck and Elliot (2005) explain that the weakness of achievement literature has been the ability of the researchers to define the word “achievement”. The authors state that there is no conceptually constructed meaning of achievement and that the achievement literature lacks cohesion, and clear sets of parameters for researchers to build on (Dweck & Elliot, 2005). Without clear guidelines, developing a clear theoretical framework is near impossible especially when achievement theory has incredible potential to explain more than motivation for school, work and sport (Dweck & Elliot, 2005). Implementing this broader framework for achievement motivation researchers can begin to understand other issues in this domain (flow, creativity, cognitive strategies, self-regulated learning, coping and disengagement, and social comparison).

In order to address this weakness, Dweck and Elliot (2005) have proposed competence as the “conceptual core” of achievement literature (Dweck and Elliot, 2005: 5). The definition of “competence” as defined by Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary is “a condition or quality of effectiveness, ability, sufficiency, or success”. By defining competence, researchers can then begin to understand such questions as, how is competence measured or evaluated. How are individuals motivated with regard to competence? How does competence effect defeated and discouraged students in determining their motivational levels for remaining and achieving in school?

Levels of competence can be measured with “concrete actions” (a toddler putting a peg in a hole) to specific outcomes (grades on a test) to identifiable patterns of skill and ability (playing baseball) to overarching characteristics (intelligence) to the “omnibus compilations” (life) (Dweck and Elliot, 2005: 6). This ability to measure competence than leads researchers to direct specific tasks and develop standards for those tasks, measure change over time or use normative comparisons (Dweck & Elliot, 2005).

Dweck and Elliot, (2005) have also noted that competence is an “inherent psychological need” of human beings (pg.6). Competence or incompetence is the driving force to accomplish specific tasks in our lives (Dweck & Elliot, 2005). Actions that are as simple as tying our shoes requires us to believe that we are either competent or incompetent at this activity which will effect whether we complete the task or not. This is also true for situations in our life that are social or publically based like preparing a speech to give to co-workers. Teachers can apply this theory to understand the underlying psychological processes in relation to competence that are occurring for defeated and discouraged students when examining their behaviour and desired learning outcomes.

Competence motivation can effect emotion and well-being in either a positive or a negative fashion through trying to attain competence and avoid incompetence (Dweck & Elliot, 2005). The emotions exhibited after a person feels they have competently completed a task could be one of joy and excitement. The opposite can also be true. Those who feel they have been incompetent at a task may feel discouraged, or anxious (Dweck & Elliot, 2005). Dweck and Elliot (2005) also states that people’s approach to a task may bring positive feelings, however the positive feeling like relief may have come out of avoiding incompetence by not completing the task. If the person has these prolonged feelings it may lead to the individual avoiding events at all cost in order to feel a sense of relief for not having to complete the task.

Researchers have found that avoidance of tasks in comparison to approach orientated motivation leads to decreased over all well being of the individual (Dweck & Elliot, 2005). The pursuit of avoidance goals do not provide individuals with the richness of experience that is required for them to grow and prosper. Defeated and discouraged students would be continually seeking experiences where they would feel competent but these situations may in fact be those situations that are negative for their long term well being. (Stealing, lying). School work and relationships with teachers would most likely have been negative throughout their school experience and the level of competence in this area would be very low thus leading to avoidance motivation which could effect whether they remain in school or not.

The question that remains is “How do teachers develop competence in defeated and discouraged learners?” Sternberg (2005) defines the development of competence as “the ongoing process of the acquisition and consolidation of a set of skills needed for performance in one or more life domains...” (pg. 15). Competence measured on a continuum includes those people just learning new skills at one end and the expert who has a deeper level of understanding and is efficient at applying the knowledge they possess at the other. This is relevant for teachers to understand that all of their students are on the continuum, which means teachers must evaluate where their students lay on that continuum. This is definitely not to say that defeated and discouraged students are at the beginning of the continuum on all skills, some skills they will be at the “expert” end. The teacher’s responsibility is to find the skills that the student is competent at and those tasks that students avoid due to fear of incompetency and develop interventions that focus on creating an increased level of competence in those skills that will help the student become successful.

Sternberg, (2005) has developed an acquisition model of competence explaining how abilities develop into competencies and competencies into expertise. Sternberg (2005) notes that individuals are in continuing stages of development and will differ in the time it takes to attain competence of a particular skill or ability. The capability for individuals to become competent is not necessarily some fixed prior level of capacity (IQ measure) but occurs through “purposeful engagement, involving direct instruction, active participation, role modelling, and reward” (Sternberg, 2005: 17).

SCHOOL CLIMATE - HOW DOES IT AFFECT ENGAGEMENT

The student’s perception of the school's climate and culture is essential for leaders to analyse as it effects the engagement of students. Smyth and Hattam (2002) explored the perceptions of early school leavers in reference to how they perceived administrative power within the schools they resided. The study identified three different themes that emerged as students voiced their opinions; the aggressive, passive or active school culture (Smyth & Hattam, 2002). The aggressive school culture emphasised a “culture of fear”, which brought many school leavers into conflict with the authoritarian style of leadership (Smyth and Hattam, 2002: 383). Students defined the passive school culture as “nice on the outside” but had no idea how to engage the youth of today. The curriculum was boring and was not relevant to youth and their interests (Smyth & Hattam, 2002). The active school culture created environments that worked with their students. Students approached school personnel to discuss issues, curriculum was flexible and pertained to current youth issues, and those students who were experiencing difficulty needed more engaging through effective curriculum (Smyth & Hattam, 2002).

This research is not about identifying school cultures as victimizing students because students also play a role in establishing their own outcomes socially, academically and in the sustainability of a functional community. The insight of early school leavers can prompt new methods to address the needs of all students within the school community. Smyth and Hattam (2002) conclude schools still predominately try to control students and their movements with the emphasis on social order. The difficulty lies when students then create their own “subscripts” to engage in this particular type of culture which may not lead to the most positive educational outcomes (Smyth and Hattam, 2002: 392).

Administrative leadership and the identification of school culture are vital to scrutinize but teacher leadership has serious repercussion if the teacher is lacking in these particular skills. Printy and Marks (2006) has identified that schools that have high quality teaching the teachers interact with their colleagues, teaching team, grade level team, and administrative staff on a regular basis. The teachers develop a vision and a purpose and together as a team develop clarity for what the intended future goals of the school and outcomes for all students (Printy & Marks, 2006). Teachers are responsible for learning and providing opportunities to tackle difficult problems together. Shared leadership encourages all participants within the school environment to be innovative and creative in developing strategies to engage children within their classrooms.

GOAL SETTING AND SELF-EVALUATION

Goal setting requires the student to be specific in an action or end (Zimmerman & Kitsantas, 2005). Teaching youth at risk to set goals is beneficial to the outcome of their willingness to stay involved in education. If youth have no goal in mind it is easy to become distracted and confused as to the direction they would like to take. Goals become a guide that facilitates the student to extend himself/herself to greater achievements if they are motivated to do so.

Other key self-regulatory processes are “task strategies” that encourage the student to analyse and identify specific methods for learning or performing a particular task. “Imagery” is a process where students create or recall vivid mental images to assist learning. “Self-monitoring” involves observing and tracking one’s own performance and “self-evaluation” requires the student to make self-judgements. “Environmental structuring” which involves structuring environments for the best learning outcomes, and “adaptive help seeking” involves choosing models, teachers and books to assist learning, (Zimmerman & Kitsantas, 2005). Athletes use this method to practice the most difficult situations that they may find themselves in during a match or game. Teaching youth at risk, these specific strategies can help them accomplish tasks in all areas of their lives not just in academic situations.

TEACHING SOCIAL COMPETENCE

The first step in addressing social compencies for students at risk is to identify their current positive social competencies versus their social incompetencies. Knapczyk & Rodes (1996) state that it is important to ask the question, “What must these students learn to improve their behaviour?” This focuses the student and the teacher on improving the skills the student requires to be successful in achieving their social and academic goals. The requirement then is to define the traits that competent students utilize in order to be successful and lay the foundation for teaching the student the skills they may be lacking (Knapczyk & Rodes, 1996). Initial assessments and observations are required to determine the areas that the intervention needs to target. A well-planned approach and discussions regarding the expectations of the student in a particular environment or setting is essential to developing an appropriate intervention for the individual student (Knapczyk & Rodes, 1996).

There are guidelines that are helpful in developing or listing a student’s expectations in particular settings or environments. Knapczyk & Rodes (1996) have found the following guidelines to be beneficial when initiating a program that is focused on developing social competence.

1. Describe the student’s expectations in positive terms. What should students do - Not what they should not do.
2. Describe expectations in terms of observable behaviour. Be specific when describing behaviour – Puts up his hand to answer the question.
3. When possible list expectations in chronological order. What is the general sequence of the activity or intended expectation? Define using a starting point and an end point. Example: He entered the classroom quietly. Returned to his desk quickly.
4. Delete items that are not true expectations. Is the expectation truly required for social competence?
5. Be sure the list reflects the full array of expectations for the situation. How the student participates in a verbal discussion as well as the ability to follow classroom rules.

By employing these guidelines, a curriculum can be developed for the student that matches their particular needs and skills. Evaluation can then take place to determine the quality or effectiveness of the intervention according to specific criterion and an assessment completed following the teaching period (Knapczyk & Rodes, 1996).

EFFECTIVE INSTRUCTION AND SCHOOL ENGAGEMENT

The importance of organization, delivery and time for students to learn specific material is crucial to increasing student engagement in school.

Williams-Bost and Riccomini (2006) have presented 10 principles for implementation of effective instruction to increase engagement for students with disabilities.

1. Active Engagement
The definition of active engagement is the amount of time students are actively engaged in relevant instructional tasks. The amount of time students actively engage can be increased using effective design and delivery of lessons, selection of interesting materials that are culturally relevant and appropriate to the students’ instructional levels, offering a variety of opportunities for student responses and reinforcing class participation.

2. Provide the Experience of Success
Teachers must provide students the opportunity to experience academic success early and regularly. Matching students’ level and task assignments is crucial to providing successful outcomes. Low academic achievement is a major factor in students dropping out of school.

3. Content Coverage and Opportunity to Learn
Deliver the content in the curriculum or classroom so students have the time to learn the content. Addressing absenteeism as a factor for youth at risk by assuring the content is engaging for students. The delivery of instruction is important to consider if students are disengaged.

4. Grouping for Instruction
Teachers who supervise learning activities directly help student engage and achieve their best. Grouping can help teachers engage students in continued learning. Groups consist of whole class, one to one, peer partners with each having its own distinct advantages and disadvantages. The most important thing to consider is the student’s academic success through increased support or grouping leading to a more likely result the student may stay in school.

5. Scaffolded Instruction
Encouraging students to become self-regulated and independent learners with scaffolded instruction allows students to become successful in school. Scaffolding is a systematic, sequenced series of prompted cues and material and teachers support to help the student utilize their strengths to overcome their weaknesses.

6. Addressing Forms of Knowledge
Teachers who balance the following critical forms of knowledge associated with strategic learning and address the students need to see relevance in the learning are more likely to encourage engagement with at risk youth. The critical forms of knowledge according to Ellis et al (1994) as cited by Bost-Williams & Riccomini (2006) are:

a. Declarative knowledge: basic facts and vocabulary
b. Procedural knowledge: steps used to solve problems
c. Conditional knowledge: when and where to use certain strategies

7. Organizing and Activating Knowledge
Carefully combining previous knowledge with new information is vital to student success. Build simple tasks into more complex tasks to develop foundational skills and knowledge to progress to tasks that are more difficult.

8. Teaching Strategically
Teach students “how to learn” versus “what content to learn”. Strategies include how a person thinks and acts when completing a task or assignment.

9. Making Instruction Explicit
Explicit instruction is teacher-directed instruction that is highly organized, task orientated and presented in a clear, direct manner to promote student understanding.

10. Teaching Sameness
Design instruction so students can recognize patterns and organize information in similar ways. Teaching sameness helps students make relevant connections, link and utilize information in a more effective and efficient way.

Using O-LADS to Structure a Classroom Discipline Plan

Hello everyone: Hope you all had a wonderful break and are rested up for another year. I thought I would write about a framework for structuring your classroom discipline that may be beneficial at the beginning of the year.

The program developed by Jerry Olsen (1989) is called O-LADS which refers to the following areas:

O - Ownership: Ownership should give your students a sense of security through control or possession of an object or idea. For example, classroom rules can be developed by all in the group, students are responsible to explain the rules to new students or visitors to the classroom, children may be given the opportunity to work on long term projects of their own choosing, contracts or mediational essays can be used to give children ownership of the problem, children are given a role to play in meetings with parents.

L- Limits: Appropriate boundaries must be set using rules, standards, and defining of areas in which the children work. Children are more secure when they know the boundaries within their control. Examples, Rules and consequences are clearly shown to the students prior to incidences occurring, predictability, consequences may be developed on a heiracrchy (teacher does not need to say "if you misbehave you are kicked out", children will be aware of where they stand on the heirarchy of consequences, refer back to the rule rather than lecturing students on the limits they have broken, visual or non-verbal cues should also be used to help those students who may struggle with auditory processing.

A - Acceptance: Children need to feel accepted for who they are without being blamed, dis-respected or rejected because of their differences. Children know when people do not accept them including the teachers and staff at the school. Techniques that may help with acceptance - using problem solving techniques to help children "own" their problems without blame, teachers can try to use humour, fun, maintain standards so children feel accepted by someone they respect, treat students as capable individuals, teach negotiation skills so children feel they can handle difficult situations with other people.

D - Direction: Giving children a sense of growth and helping them acquire new skills, knowledge and generation of their own ideas. Setting clear goals and standards that enhance feelings of competence, success, curiousity and completion of tasks. Students can experience success and recognition by: using clear goals as targets, using a curriculum that progresses, encouragement from teachers, using good instructional materials, developing morale or group spirit. Other examples, have children write a journey of their lives so far and where they would like to go, imagery through stories and film, compile lists of acquired skills (reading rate, math accuracy), students can define dreams, hopes and aspirations for when they grow up, have students predict how much quality work they can produce over the week, month, year, use timelines to show how the child is progressing with academics and behaviour (visual indicator).

S - Systems: "a set of connected parts forming a complex whole" Relationships are interactive and work two ways. Teacher affect students and students affect teachers. Blame can infect the "whole system" and can split the system so it does not perform efficiently. Teachers should work with parents and parents should work with teachers to make sure they are teaching the child to work cooperatively with all those people around them. Working as a team is paramount. Try to "externalize" the problem, people fight the problem, not each other. See things from others point of view.

The program encompasses all five areas when establishing your discipline plan at school, home and in the community for managing potential difficult situations.

Hope everyone has a great year. I look forward to discussing strategies and ideas as the year unfolds.