7th March 2015
WORKSHOP Brdo, Slovenia
MOTIVATING STRATEGIES FOR CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT: Carrots & visions CARROTS ACTIVITY 1: Read this real-life scenario from an American school classroom: Mr Patterson was a high-school social studies teacher. He decided that he would allow his class to play games every Friday to review the material that was covered in class during the preceding week. The class particularly enjoyed emulating television game shows, such as Jeopardy. Each week Mr Patterson divided his classes into two teams. The team that won the competition would receive two bonus points on the next examination. The students in Mr Patterson’s classes enjoyed their Friday ‘game’ days. After doing this for several weeks, however, Mr Patterson realized that some of his students’ grades were becoming inflated due to all the extra points they were earning. Consequently the next Friday he told both classes that they would still be playing games that day but it was just for ‘fun’; the reward of two extra points would no longer be available. From Anderman, E. M., & Anderman, L. H. (2010). Classroom Motivation. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education. p28.
How do you think the students reacted? How should have Mr Patterson organized his Friday classes? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Rewards for school work are a very controversial subject – academics themselves do not agree on whether they are a good or bad thing. It does seem that rewards can be successful short-term motivators as long as: • they are used for dull but necessary routine tasks which might otherwise not be done AND/OR • they are informational i.e. they give pupils some genuinely useful information about their progress AND/OR • they reward individual effort or improvement not just ability But teachers may be able to identify other benefits from their own experience… REWARDS I OFFER Think of a type of reward that you give your pupils
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Now consider: • Does it enable learners to do something necessary that they wouldn’t otherwise do? • Does it give learners some useful information about their learning? • Does it reward effort as well as ability? • Does it WORK?!