During the Thanksgiving break I fled the cold winter weather for a bit of sun in a warmer state. I found myself in a magical place and while in awe at the use of technology for entertainment purposes, I also visited an interactive educational/entertainment museum called Wonderworks. It was amazing how much one learns while having fun and I came to again understand what Guthrie et al. (2006) mean when they argue that to raise students' motivation and engagement levels in especially a reading class, educators need to capitalize on situational interests (p. 232). In other words, teachers need to present tasks and activities in environments (situations) which students find engaging and interesting (p.233).
I was thinking back on the past semester and all the new technologies we were introduced to. As an educator I can easily envisage using several of them in my reading and writing class and have no doubt that my class will have a strong technological presence. I was still wondering though... if we as educators aim to address 21st century students' language needs by presenting tasks and activities in an environment that is considered to be interesting and engaging and we select texts that we think students might find interesting, does the responsibility of motivating students to actively engage in the learning process still lie with the educator or is there a point after which we have done what we can and students are responsible for their own motivation and engagement levels? In other words, do you think that if students are not motivated that the primary motivating responsibility lies with the educator even if above mentioned aspects have been addressed?
Reference
Guthrie, J.T., Wigfield, A., Humenick, N.M., Perencevich, K.C., Taboada, A., & Barbosa, P. (2006). Influences of Stimulating Tasks on Reading Motivation and Comprehension. The Journal of Educational Research, 99(4), 232-245.
First off I hope you had a good Thanksgiving break. Second I think that educators need to be motivated but at the same time students need to give some too. The teacher can do all they want to make the class interesting and fun but if the students don't want to be engaged then they won't. That's just what I think.
ReplyDeleteI think you have posed a very good question. I believe that teachers can do everything possible to motivate students, but there will still be some students that will not find that motivation. I do believe that sometimes it also lies within the willingness and openess of the studnets, and there are going to be some students that will be harder to reach than others. I feel this might happen more in older ages. This assumption could possibly be completely off, but in some of my experiences it seems to be true. You posed a really good question, and I'm interested to see what others think. Hope you had a good break!
ReplyDeleteGood question - it brings about the "issue" of has education gone the route of edutainment to actually get students motivated? I still think there is a majority that think - "what was good enough for me, is good enough for the students today." That is really not a good thing. As much as we try to ignore it, students are different today. They have grown up in a totally different environment than what our parents and grandparents did. Different things motivate them. Unfortunately, extrinsic motivation seems to have over taken the intrinsic motivational factors in most students. Students don't seem to have the motivation to do something well, because they should! They barely are motivated to do things well because they have to do it! Teachers need to be able to motivate their students, but they shouldn't be obligated to entertain those students - if we use technology in a way that supports a TPACK approach, I truly believe we can motivate, yet educate our students using these flexible tools!
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