DRiVE Part 3

THE TYPE i TOOLKIT

DRiVE, by Daniel Pink concludes with ample amounts off methods to improve intrinsic motivation in businesses, classrooms, and throughout your life.

Things to ponder:

What is your Sentence? 

A congresswoman once told President JFK, “a great man is a sentence. Lincoln’s was: ‘he preserved the union and freed the slaves.’ FDR’s was: ‘he lifted us out of the Great Depression and helped us win a world war.’ What is your sentence?”

By reorganizing, and focusing on a singular leading task we are able to gain traction on what matters most to us, and what will motivate us intrinsically.

Mine as a future educator would be "Lisa inspired students to achieve their greatest potential and develop a life long passion for agriculture."

COMMENT what your sentence would be!

 What did you accomplish today?

As you work to achieve your sentence from the last question remember how you eat an elephant; one bite at a time.

Ask yourself at the end of the day: “are you better today than you were yesterday?”

Write down your small incremental steps and remind yourself you won’t be a master in a few days; mastery is a journey of a thousand steps.

As a student teacher in the spring, I have purchased a small white board for my room. ON this white board I plan to do two things. 

1. Write down a small attainable goal each morning, such as sticking to my "set-up" routine before each class, resolving a conflict with a student, or grading a class's assignment prior to leaving the school.

2. Write down any progress I had made that day, such as I helped a student and saw the "light-bulb" turn on.

Conduct deliberate practice

The best way to improve is to apply effort toward improving performance; to do this follow these few tips: 

1. Set a stretch goal. Remember that the goal of practice is to improve performance, not to go through the motions. 

In the spring this would look like making goals which I would rely on my virtual mentors and Mrs. Barzydlo for assistance to meet, such as connecting with a student or diversifying my lessons to meet my learner's needs more adequately.

2. Understand your weaknesses, and direct your effort there.

Throughout the fall in 412, 413, and 295 I will adequately identify my weaknesses. Knowing this information going into spring semester will allow me to create a game plan to reach those stretch-goals.

3. Apply full concentration and effort. It’s going to be mentally and physically exhausting.

I take this advice with a grain of salt. Yes I must prepare and have GRIT, but I cannot forget to take time out of each day, even 5 minutes, to re-charge my batteries.

4. Receive immediate and informative feedback. This will point out how to improve.

I am fortunate to have a wonderful mentor team, cohort members, Penn State supervisors and cooperating teachers to guide me through feedback to become a better educator.

5. Repeat, with discipline. Mastery is the sum of thousands of small events, done day in and day out.

Similar to the question, "what did you accomplish today?" I can create a daily motivations to power through. Overtime this will help you develop grit.

Improving Intrinsic Motivation In My Classroom

Give 20% Time for Self-Chosen Projects

Companies like google and 3M have had success in implementing 20% time to generate free thinking. This would be a good practice to allow students to have a free-friday to work on various Ag related tasks such as working in AET, completing projects due, or exploring other areas of content they were curious about. 

Turn an Off-Site into a Fedex Day

Teachers can set aside the day for when students can choose what to work on, with the only rule being that they must deliver. They can deliver a new idea, a prototype, a better process, or more.

In an Agriculture Classroom they have ENDLESS opportunities to deliver on their learning. 

Conduct Anonymous Surveys of Autonomy and Purpose

Ask questions like “how much autonomy do you have over your learning in my class?” and “what is our organization’s purpose?”

How can I know how my students really feel if I don't ask them?

Give Yourself Performance Reviews

It’d be crazy to imagine an athlete like Lebron James getting feedback or coaching just once a year, in a 1-hour session. Try to seek more management feedback for yourself.

In addition, give yourself performance reviews. Set performance and learning goals at the beginning of the month, and then evaluate your performance at the end of the month.

Involve students in Goal Setting

Bring students into the goal-setting process. This will give students ownership over our goals and make them feel more driven toward accomplishing them.

Transitioning into the changes

A theory is perfect, until we make it practice

As a student, you might feel helpless if the teacher suddenly changes your entire routine.

• Start small. Don’t worry about changing the whole classroom overnight, change one routine piece at a time and allow the students to adjust accordingly.
• Experiment in a committed fashion. Try with all your might, but don't be afraid to scrap an idea and start new if it isn't working.
• Emphasize results. To get students to see their improvements, show them improved learning, point out curious behavior, or tell them you are proud of their accomplishments.

RTL Reflection

The Task: 

At the end of our very first day in AEE 412, Ms. Morey asked us to randomly select a packet of papers which would assign the topic which we would be teaching on two days later, during Lab AEE 412. 

My task was to teach as many of my peers to juggle three balls, for one rotation in a 15 minute lesson. I was TERRIFIED! Mostly because I CAN'T JUGGLE!

How it went:

I wrote my lesson plan, practiced juggling for three hours, and hoped for the best. I walked into class like a boss, knowing this was just a temperature taking assignment, and knowing if anything my peers and I were going to try our best but have a good time doing so. 

First, I had a technical issue. The room's audio was malfunctioning, so therefore my video for the final step of three-ball-juggling demonstration (which I was only able to successfully juggle two) was incomplete. Fortunately, as a back up, I narrated what the gentlemen were saying and used the video as a visual aid.

Second, none of my peers successfully learned to juggle three balls in 15 minutes. Bummer... BUT, I look for silver linings:

1. All of my peers were motivated to try
2. All of my peers tried their best
3. All of my peers showed significant improvement from where we started.

My learning:

First: I had a reality check. Ag teachers are jacks of all trades and masters of none. I will be teaching material I don't fully understand, or maybe skills I can't fully do. But, similar to my juggling lesson, a successful teacher will invest the time to get better or understand more, and have a back-up plan to better teach the students.

Second: When checking for understanding, you will have to go back sometimes and divert from the lesson plan to make sure information is fully understood. It wasn't in my lesson plan to spend 10 minutes on practicing with two-ball-juggling, which slowed us down from getting to the three-ball-juggling task. But I knew my students/peers needed that information to move forward.

Third: YET... it is such a powerful word. A peer of mine said "I can't do this." Fortunately for me we had just covered growth mindset, and my response was quick and meaningful. I simply said "yet," smiled, paused for it to sink in, and started to help the student more.

My feedback from Peers:

Unanimously, my feedback included that the task given to me REQUIRED more time. Given 15 minutes in class was an assigned time, I had to work with what I could. Outside of the practice room I will use this feedback in the future -- you can only go so fast. Cramming tons of learning into short periods of time doesn't promote meaningful learning, it promotes checking off arbitrary boxes of completion. 

An additional comment that stuck out was they appreciated the differentiated methods of giving feedback and instruction regarding their performance. Throughout the lesson I had first demonstrated, then I showed the video, then I went to each students individually and worked with them, then I had them work with each other to coach each other, and finally I coached them as a whole group again before moving on.

Weekly Investment #2

How can we facilitate and design excellent teaching & learning?

First, you don't just "happen" to be a great teacher. Excellent teaching and learning is a thoughtfully mapped out event that happens as a results of excellent unit, lesson, and objective planning. 

Home-run quotes from The first days of school: How to be an effective teacher

When the subject matter to be learned possesses meaning, organization, and structure that is clear to students, learning proceeds more rapidly and is retained longer.

Food for thought for the spring: Students don't need to know the historical facts of a content area before they learn the present applications, peak their interest first, then dive into how we got here or why. 

Example: Students don't need to study the first greenhouses in order to learn about starting seeds in a greenhouse. After working in the greenhouse you can ask students, "How do you think the first greenhouses looked? From what you have seen, how have we made them better?"

Students must be motivated to learn. Learning activities should be provided that reflect the wants, needs, interests, and aspirations of students

Food for thought for the spring: I will continue to explore student motivations? How can I motivate students in content areas that they may not be inherently interested in?

Students are motivated when they attempt tasks that fall in a range of challenge such that success is perceived to be possible but not certain.

Food for thought for the spring: Internally I'm screaming as I remember zone of proximal development and scaffolding your students. By consistently "temperature taking" my students I can successfully gauge were their zones lie.

To maximize learning, students should inquire into rather than be instructed in the subject matter. Problem-oriented approaches to teaching improve learning.

Food for thought for the spring: Spoon feeding information is never fun. Challenging the students with a question they can't answer right away peaks curiosity. Although, people don't know what they don't know. Asking meaningful questions with purpose and direction is key.

Supervised practice that is most effective occurs in a functional educational experience.

Food for thought for the spring: Considering this mentioned "Supervised" and "Experience" peaked my interest regarding SAEs. Being mindful of supervising students in their SAE is huge, these projects can be big and daunting, being present and guiding makes the elephant task more consumable.

Importance of Planning:

1. Units must be taught in a purposeful sequence to peak student interest and ability to connect information
2. Lessons must be structured in a way that promotes inquiry and successful student learning
3. Good questions don't just happen, planning what you are going to say aids in funneling students down efficient pathways of learning.