Chapter 7
Motivating, Managing, and Assessing:
How Will I Teach?
Fraser TEACH
© 2011 McGraw- Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved.
How Will I Motivate My
Students?
• Keeping school interesting for students was a
major reason behind progressive education
movement
• Dewey believed that for school to stay
interesting, it should connect to “real life”
experiences of students
– Traditional way of schooling was built on handing
down knowledge to receptive student
– Dewey insists that “the only way to teach the new
was to connect it to what the student already knew
and on what the student wanted to know”
Fraser TEACH
© 2011 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved.
How Will I Motivate My
Students?
• Vito Perrone’s “teaching for
understanding”
– Students choose materials, such as books,
after the teacher has outlined clear goals
– Teachers learn from and respect the
opinions and experiences of their students
– Students connect with the outside world
through service-learning and letters
Fraser TEACH
© 2011 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved.
What About Me?
• How would you describe the
characteristics of your best teachers and
your worst teachers? What aspects of
your best teacher kept you motivated?
Fraser TEACH
© 2011 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved.
How Will I Control My
Classroom?
• Zero tolerance
– Tough discipline code that expels students
on the spot for breaking certain school rules
– Lee Canter, a zero tolerance advocate,
contends:
• Students must know rules and consequences
• Students can decide to enjoy the rewards for
following rules or accept the consequences for
breaking them
– Canter’s approach is similar to B.F.
Skinner’s behaviorist approach
Fraser TEACH
© 2011 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved.
How Will I Control My
Classroom?
• Critics of zero tolerance discipline
– Landon Beyer claims that with a strict
approach to classroom discipline:
• Students become people whose interests and
backgrounds are largely ignored
• Students need to be coaxed to do the right thing
• Tasks are created and imposed on students by
others
– Beyer believes that students should be
brought into the classroom decision-making
process
Fraser TEACH
© 2011 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved.
How Will I Control My
Classroom?
• Establishing expectations
– Barbara McEwan favors a classroom
management process that focuses on
thoughtful decision-making
• Creates a classroom that is conducive to
learning
• Prepares students to be citizens of a democracy
– By establishing expectations and thinking
of the needs of each individual student,
classrooms can become effective places for
learning
Fraser TEACH
© 2011 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved.
How Will I Control My
Classroom?
• Teacher behaviors in the classroom
– Perrone’s list of principles for developing
and maintaining productive classrooms:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Fraser TEACH
Be well-prepared for each day
Use challenging ideas and materials
Be reasonably consistent
Be clear about what really matters
Show respect for the students
Know the students
Be physically present
© 2011 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved.
How Will I Control My
Classroom?
• Teacher behaviors in the classroom
– Harvard psychologist, Ross W. Greene
proposed “Collaborative Problem Solving”
approach for classroom management
• Assumes students are acting out for a simple
reason, such as embarrassment or inability to sit
still for a long period of time
• Teachers need to develop a collaborative
relationship with student to solve the problem
Fraser TEACH
© 2011 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved.
How Will I Assess My Students in a
Fair and Meaningful Way?
• Teachers face more pressure about
assessment than any previous generation
of educators
– Students, parents, and administrators expect
grades
– States and federal government are giving
students more and more tests
• NCLB tests students every year, with teachers
and school measured by results
• National Assessment of Educational Progress
(NAEP)
Fraser TEACH
© 2011 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved.
How Will I Assess My Students in a
Fair and Meaningful Way?
• Multiple levels of classroom assessment
– Informal classroom assessment
– Quizzes and longer exams and assignments
– Student portfolios
• Teachers need to provide timely and
detailed feedback if students are to learn
from their work
– Rubrics provide students a clear set of
standards for work
Fraser TEACH
© 2011 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved.
How Will I Assess My Students in a
Fair and Meaningful Way?
• High-stakes assessment
– Standardized testing has been supported by
many state legislatures, Congress, and the
last three U.S. presidents
– Advocates for standardized testing claim:
• There is no seriousness about the quality of
education without student accountability and
ways to measure student achievement
Fraser TEACH
© 2011 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved.
How Will I Assess My Students in a
Fair and Meaningful Way?
• High-stakes assessment
– Those critical of standardization claim:
• Large gap exists between goals of NCLB and
reality
• High-stakes testing increases the
dropout/pushout rate for students of color
– Many educators are now looking for ways
that teachers can balance test preparation
and truly engaging instruction
Fraser TEACH
© 2011 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved.
Reading: From I Won’t Learn from You! by
Herb Kohl
• Students often don’t fail or have the
inability to learn, but rather choose to
“not-learn”
• Kohl examines his personal experiences
to understand why students choose to
not-learn
• Students who choose to not-learn engage
in a struggle of will with authority, with
the student’s pride and integrity at stake
Fraser TEACH
© 2011 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved.
Reading: From Experience and Education
by John Dewey
• Traditional education focused on transmitting
past knowledge to new students
– Dewey writes that knowledge is “taught as a
finished product, with little regard…to changes that
will surely occur in the future.”
• Progressive education develops such values as
learning through experience, and expression
and cultivation of identity
– New problems appear with progressive education
that must also be solved
Fraser TEACH
© 2011 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved.
Reading: From Lost at School by Ross W.
Greene
• Greene claims “school discipline is broken”
• Greene contends that “kids with behavioral challenges
lack important thinking skills,” including:
– Regulating one’s emotions, and considering the outcomes of
one’s actions
• By approaching challenging students as we do students
with learning disabilities, we teach them skills that they
lack
• With the Collaborative Problem Solving approach, the
child and adult work together to resolve a problem or
unmet expectation in a mutually satisfactory manner
– Includes examples for crisis management and prevention
Fraser TEACH
© 2011 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved.
Reading: New Design High School
Community Habits Rubric
• Rubric “spells out very clear criteria for
exceeding, meeting, or failing to meet a long
list of clear goals that the school holds for its
students”
• Areas used for student assessment include:
–
–
–
–
–
Fraser TEACH
Personal responsibility
Social responsibility
Critical and creative thinking
Application of knowledge in subject area
Communication
© 2011 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved.