Ch. 7 Blog

“Motivation and Teacher Expectations. Teachers sometimes unintentionally worsen feelings of failure, disaffection, and not wanting to try anymore (p. 194).”

When I read the statement above, I thought of what we learned in Dr. Fox’s class about unintentional harmful praise. For example, if a teacher overly praises a student for doing exceptionally well on a test or any given assignment, how will the teacher compensate for praise when the student doesn’t do so well on the next test/assignment. I’m sure this type of situation happens all of the time because the teacher is so excited for the improvement in the student especially if he/she usually struggles, but will the absence or lack of praise of following tests/assignments cause the student to become less motivated or completely unmotivated all together. Fortunately, the solution is easy, we as teachers must find the perfect balance. Unfortunately, finding the perfect balance can be difficult.

However, our ability as teachers to motivate our students is extremely important to their educational success. We all know that motivation is a key element in engaging students and can be done so by activating prior knowledge and schema to teach a new concept. We also know that as teachers we are not to assume anything about any student. We should not assume that students already know/understand any given concept, and we should not assume any reasons why students seem motivated or unmotivated because we never know what our students come to us with ranging from home life to school life. Our job should be to motivate, inspire, and educate all students equally.