Going forwards, on Tuesdays, I will be checking my Twitter feed and picking out "One Thing" to share. We're calling it, "Twitter Tuesdays" as it sort of has a nice ring to it.
Today's link is to an article written by a (former?) high school Phys Ed teacher named David Ginsburg. He writes about his biggest regret as a classroom teacher:
using extrinsic rewards to motivate students.
I have used rewards in my class. Sometimes it has seemed to work and other times not. My psychology background taught me to use "partial reinforcement" as a way to try and get students to do the right thing. It was my hope that rewarding a behaviour sometimes but not always would get students to do the right thing because it was the right thing and not so that they would receive something for doing it.
What I enjoyed about Mr. Ginsburg's article was that it is an open an honest admission to doing something that he now realizes was not good for his students. That is hard to do.
I also really enjoyed the last paragraph:
But the way to elicit students' cooperation is by empowering
them, not by trying to control them. I know this because of the dramatic
improvements in culture and student outcomes in my classroom after I stopped
using rewards (and their cousin, disciplinary rules and punitive consequences).
Improvements that were the result of giving students voices and choices in
their classroom rather than bribing them to comply in my classroom.
Improvements that were reflected in students feeling fulfilled because of what
they were learning, not because of what they were earning.
The part about the classroom now belonging to the students is great. Putting student artwork or work that they have done up around the class also goes a long way to making the students feel like that space is theirs. The alternative is you having a bunch of posters that you put up at the start of the year that state: "this is my room". That's what I used to do. I think that things are shifting in the right direction.
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