Second, we had a guest speaker today that showed us how much is out there for us to use as resources for teaching through the Internet. I thought that this was pretty neat because it definitely opened me up to how much is actually out there. I've worried about how to assign research projects knowing that most students would use the Internet and may not be able to discern the difference between a good website or a bad website, so knowing that there are tools that I can use eases that anxiety somewhat.
Third, we split into our respective disciplines to talk about how we might design a lesson plan that centers around Bring Your Own Devices (BYOD). My group is science, and at first, I thought this would be difficult. I'm specifically Earth science, and I am the only one in our group. Otherwise, we have two biology and two chemistry interns. I was worried we might not be able to find common ground and that the other two concentrations would split off leaving me to decide between chemistry and biology. We did manage to come up with a pretty solid idea for a lesson plan that should bring together all of our specialized areas, so everything should work out swimmingly.
Fourth, we talked about the video games that we investigated for class. The game I looked at, Gizmos & Gadgets!, was definitely an educational game, and I just assumed most other interns would look at strictly educational games as well. However, this was not the case, so it was interesting to hear other interns talk about how games like Halo and others could "fit" into a classroom. I think the conclusion was that games like Halo could technically fit into a classroom, but realistically, there really is no shot at incorporating some video games into a lesson.
Finally, Rory left us with a wonder question right as class was ending about how we could make our classroom feel more like a video game to students. One thing that someone said (can't remember who) was that instead of points, homework assignments could be worth gold coins. I kind of liked this idea. I would want to physically have gold coins to hand out to students, and I also think it would be fun to allow students to use their gold coins to purchase things. For most things, gold coins would have to be awarded based on effort because students that are not as advanced as other students could feel alienated if they are not able to earn any gold coins and participate in purchasing things. Again, since my mom is a fourth grade teacher, I have an example from her class that I want to bring into this post. She gives out tickets for many things around the classroom, like turning in your homework, participating effectively, and even strange things like when she calls a student by the wrong name. At the end of the year, she has an sale where students can use their tickets to purchase things, like candy, toys, etc. She provides many of the items for the same, but parents also get involved and donate things as well. She also always makes sure that she has some big-ticket item, and she also tries to make sure that there is something every student would be interested in. Depending on the grade level, I think that this is something that could be used to make a classroom feel more like a video game. Students can earn gold coins in a variety of ways, and then these gold coins could be used at a sale that takes place maybe once or twice a year. This idea probably still needs to be refined, but I'm interested to see what other interns come up with.
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hey Mike, I also like the idea of giving out gold coins as a way to engage students and to acknowledge behaviors that we want to see in our classroom. It makes me think about the stuff we've been learning in 606, and how it's really important to reinforce behaviors that we want to see (as opposed to only punishing behaviors that we don't want to see). Also, I really like how you talk about giving them out based on effort. I think we tend to see less and less of that as we move into higher grades. But like we have also been learning in our other classes (606 and 511), it is really important to stress the importance of developing habits that promote learning and rewarding effort, rather than just recognizing when students "get the right answer." This sounds like a great way to do exactly that!
ReplyDeleteHmmm...Jayanthi and Mike,
ReplyDeleteI was also tempted to run with the idea of gold coins, but I also keep thinking of 606 and the idea that extrinsic rewards are not as effective as intrinsic rewards. Aren't gold coins a form of extrinsic reward?
We've talked a bit about the idea that there is a danger in kids starting to work for the sake of the coins rather than for the sake of learning and their interest in the subject. And I remember at one point Erin brought up a study (that she had learned about in a psych class) where classrooms that used extrinsic rewards were interviewed and at the end of the year, even the students who HAD an initial interest in the content at the beginning of the year had lost it after pursuing the rewards all year. Or something like that.
Anyways, I think I'm being dramatic, but I wonder what you two think about this. Is there a way both to promote real interest in the subject and to award gold coins for effort?
So curious,
Rachel
Hi, Rachel, thanks for your comment. As I was writing this post, I also kept thinking about the whole rewards thing, too. This might work better in a lower grade, but I think the way my mom does it is that when a student hands in homework, even before she checks through it at all, she already gives them a ticket, and students can watch her put a tick next to their name in her gradebook right when they hand it in. She also shows them that she is glad that they turned in their work and that she is proud of them, which I think changes the system she has from purely extrinsic to at least having a component of intrinsic reward. Now, I have no idea what the homework return rate is in her class, but the students I have at Scarlett rarely turn in any of their math homework, and I have to wonder how they would react to getting something like a ticket if they did turn in homework. The issue would be that they might only be doing the homework for the ticket, so in another class, they still might not do the homework, but since they weren't doing any homework in the first place, is doing homework in one class only because they want a ticket any worse than them not doing any homework?
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