When reading O'Brien, it immediately made me think of my brother. This is his first year in college and he attends Suffolk
Community College on Long Island. My brother, Zack, has never liked
school. To this day actually, the kid is not fond of it one bit. One
thing to add is that learning was and still is a difficult task for
him. He was one of those kids that had to go to the resource room and
take tests in another room and stuff like that. One thing that O' Brien
states I feel was relative to Zack:
When students discover, early in their academic careers, that they are not
doing well in reading (it could be any school discipline), and they
attribute success to stable factors
outside of their control (e.g., the texts are too hard, effort doesn't
yield results, the teacher is hard, they just don't have the ability),
success is perceived as unattainable, universal, and permanent. (O' Brien
30)
This is just it! When my mom, dad , or myself would tell him he is smart, you can do well in
school he just didn't believe it. But there were certain
things in high school that this kid actually did enjoy! And wouldn't
you expect...all surfaced around bringing technology into the classroom
even a couple of years ago.
He told me how even then,"doing like an exercise and letting the students use powerpoints
rather than like write stuff on paper and then they present it" was
more thrilling than what was mostly being done. I'm sure the use of powerpoints
, especially under the control of the students, wasn't as often and
common as Zack and his other peers would have liked. Teachers should
know that through technology, even what is now the old-schoolpowerpoint, can help kids realize that they can be successful in scholastic endeavors:
When students perceived that they were successful, and they could set
personally relevant goals and see that they were improving, they would read
and write more, build fluency, and decide to persevere, even on tasks that
they perceived as being difficult (Anderman et al., 2001; Pintrich and
Schunk 1996). (O'Brien 30)
4 comments:
Hey Willis,
I am actually living really close to campus now so anytime is good for me 'cept Monday I have a class from 4:20-6:50 but I can meet up anytime after that. What time were thinking of and where? library?
Charity
leave comment on my blog and I will get it since i check my yahoo every day. also have AIM--do u have that? my name is Charsxy7
Hi Charity and Willis, plan to come by and see me...before your class Charity.
Thanks!
Willis, nice connection with your brother. Suggestion: end with your own analysis rather than with the article author's words.
Willis, I'm sorry i wasn't able to make it monday night because of the storm...i was there earlier in the day but then i noticed the library was closing shop early so I didn't go back. SOrry to get back to you so late on this and not sooner, like yesterday.
and karen, I have to do a scholars day presentation with Dr. Sarver from 3-4:30 so I will actually be late to class, hence also won't be able to meet with you before class tomorrow. You might get an email from Dr. S about this too.
Hey--
So, I took your suggestion from the comment on my blog and I checked out your blog.
I think it's great that you brought your brother Zack into the discussion. When motivation problems happen to someone you know (or even yourself) it makes the whole argument stronger.
Besides, doesn't it completely motivate YOU to be the teacher that your brother never had? (besides the ones that did reach him)
I wish you the best in your future teaching career :o)
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