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Factors affecting motivation in education
Factors affecting student motivation
Factors affecting student motivation
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I have always valued school and enlarging my intelligence; I receive a sense of pride from earning a decent grade on a paper or on a particular assignment. Alfie Kohn wrote an essay titled “From Degrading to De-grading”; in it he suggests a different view on the current education system. Even though students expect marks and even seem dependent on them, grading should spur on a love of studying not deter it. Grades tend to reduce a student’s inclination for stimulating tasks, and lessen students’ interest in erudition. According the three leading effects of grading outlined in Kohn’s paper, the number one effect of grading is “grades tend to reduce students' interest in being taught.” I would agree with his argument grading and testing puts pressure on getting excellent grades and takes the focus off understanding and on “performing” acceptably. When I was younger, I was ferocious reading lately the only reading I accomplish is required for a class or studying a textbook. It was enjoyable since I loved reading; I was not required to read all the books I read due to my genuine love for reading and words. Because of that, I excelled in English. …show more content…
I had a remarkable teacher named Robin Furnish. Each week she assigned mini speeches. Initially I put a great deal of work into my speeches, and I wanted them to impeccable. A few weeks into the school year, I began to realize I could get away with doing little, and still get an A. Slowly, but surely the quality of the work I was doing lessened. Kohn states the second outcome of grading “Grades tend to reduce students’ preference for challenging tasks.” I agree his point I knew I was able to complete the work in half the time and still perform passably in her class, therefore I stopped
In her article, “The Case Against GRADES”, Alfie Kohn discusses the grading system and its faults. She opens her argument with information from an older psychological study that proves the negative impact of the current grading system, and she reinforces this with the proof that “no” research has contradicted this statement. Also, she gives many key reasons including: “Motivation”, “Achievement”, “Quantification”, and “Curriculum”. Kohn supports these topics with other reasearch for why the system is failing the students. She asserts that, “… the absence of grading is a necessary condition for promoting deep thinking and a desire to engage in it.” As support, she offers other solutions and then debunks them by proving that they would not solve
In the op-ed, “Grade Inflation Gone Wild,” Stuart Rojstaczer addresses the concern of grade inflation and its effects on students. Rojstaczer uses several different methods to prove his point of view to the reader. Rojstaczer links grade inflation to the sinking quality of education, as well as the rise of college alcoholics. While this op-ed does a satisfactory job appealing to the reader on a person-person basis, many of Rojstaczer’s main claims do not hold any scholarly evidence. This analysis over “Grade Inflation Gone Wild” will discuss whether Rojstaczer has written this editorial solely to convince readers of his opinion, or does Rojstaczer present a credible claim in higher education’s grade inflation.
“Making the Grade” by Kurt Wiesenfeld Newsweek magazine, June 27 1996 brings to light an issue that has been glazed over by society for some time, grade inflation. It’s highly disturbing that “we lament that schoolchildren get “kicked upstairs” until they graduate from high school despite being illiterate and mathematically inept, but we seem unconcerned with college graduates whose less blatant deficiencies are far more harmful, if their accreditation exceeds their qualifications”. The issue of grade inflation is not simply an issue of students feeling entitled to higher grades than they have earned, it is a problem that directly impacts our society in a multitude of negative ways. Perhaps the “gold star” mentality started out with the good intentions of creating children with positive self-esteem, however, a direct result is lazy adults with a sense of entitlement for no reason, who lack qualifications to adequately and safely perform their jobs.
Mark Edmundson, In the use of a Liberal Education, Edmundson observer’s his work place and peers with a long of his students he noticed how the evaluations was not up to date, Edmundson discuss with his students about how the consumerism has an impact on the college’s around the world and also talk’s about how some are financial supported by the “G.I. Bill and how the population dramatically increased after the Second World War “(44). Edmundson argues over the evaluations and how some students don’t always make them interesting and how he would commend them to be more interesting, than what has been written in the past years; Edmundson talks about how grading has gotten so much easier because the teachers are afraid of the students making
Within the walls of our educational system lie many adverse problems. Is there a solution to such problems? If so, what is the solution? As we take a look at two different essays by two different authors’ John Gatto and Alfie Kohn, both highlight what’s wrong within our educational system in today’s society. As John Gatto explores the concept if schools are really as necessary as they’re made out to be; Alfie Kohn analyzes the non-importance of letter grades within our schools. Although both essays are fairly different, they still pose some similarities in relation to the educational system in today’s society.
In “What is a Grade” by Pat Belanoff, she explains the pros and cons of the grading system. In Pats ' essay she states “Perhaps the solution would to abandon grading altogether in writing class. I confess that this a solution that appeals to me greatly.” (151). Grades should not be present in the way we test students’ learning ability. School seems to be more about learning the material for a brief moment just to get a good grade rather then to actually learn and think about the information being presented.
Kohn, Alfie. What Does It Mean to Be Well Educated? and More Essays on Standards, Grading, and Other Follies. Boston, MA: Beacon, 2004. Print.
Graff begins by talking about the educational system, and why it flawed in many ways, but in particular, one: Todays schools overlook the intellectual potential of street smart students, and how shaping lessons to work more readily with how people actually learn, we could develop into something capable of competing with the world. In schools, students are forced to recite and remember dull and subject heavy works in order to prepare them for the future, and for higher education. “We associate the educated life, the life of the mind, too narrowly and exclusively with subjects and texts that we consider inherently weighty and academic. We assume that it’s possible to wax intellectual about Plato, Shakespeare, the French Revolution, and nuclear fission, but not about cars, dating, fashion, sports, TV, or video games.” (Graff, 198-199) In everyday life, students are able to learn and teach themselves something new everyday. It is those students, the “young person who is impressively “street smart” but does poorly in school” (Graff, 198), that we are sweeping away from education and forcing to seek life in places that are generally less successful than those who attend a college or university.
One of the issues, which Boyer points out , is that teachers and students have different expectations from college education. She says that the teachers are mainly concerned about students’ comprehension of the material, their attendance and attention while students’ hopes are to get good grades and to be well prepared for exams. It seems that the system of grading pushes students to not care too much about what is being taught from an understanding perspective, but only promotes more concern about grades instead. Some students don't really pay attention unless the instructor mentions an exam or something that will be graded. Furthermore, be...
Standardized Tests restrict student learning in the classroom (Cole, Hulley, and Quarles 17). The teachers in a classroom cannot teach what they would like to teach, but rather they are forced to teach what will be on the test. Often, when teachers teach what will be on the test, many students will begin to zone out and do other things, rather than listen to the teacher drill them with memorization for the tests (Willis 59) Teachers are graded based on how well their students do on these standardized tests, so they will teach only what is going to be on the test, to keep their jobs, or even get raises. Whenever this happens, students are hurt because they lose out on many opportunities to learn, and they even lose critical thinking skills. The testing curriculum often also places too many goals for students and teachers to reach, which will force them to move more quickly and not properly address every topic (Popham 71). Which, in the long run with further encourage only teaching the test, and nothing else.
In conclusion, education is broader than just falling into what the contemporary school system has to offer. Both Gatto and Graff proved this by explain how conforming students to certain perspectives of education limits their potential in other educational branches that interest the students. Also, curricula should bring a balance between making a school a place for obtaining information, and accommodating the educational demands for each individual student. It is imperative to understand that reforming the academic system, by fine-tuning schools to have its students learn what exactly they are interested in, will lead to having students accessing their full intellectual potential.
Stecher, “The net effect of high-stakes testing on policy and practice is uncertain. Researchers have not documented the desirable consequences of testing—providing more instruction, working harder, and working more effectively—as clearly as the undesirable ones—such as negative reallocation, negative alignment of classroom time to emphasize topics covered by a test, excessive coaching, and cheating. More important, researchers have not generally measured the extent or magnitude of the shifts in practice that they identified as a result of high-stakes testing.” Which means that in completion no test is truly valid or reliable for there are too many mistakes to be had by either the test takers or the Test
Put yourself in a high school students shoes. Your main focal points are to do well in school, get good grades, learn new things, make memories, and to have fun. Though many schools place a fun and constructive learning environment over a stressful test based environment, some do not. Schools have made standardized testing their main focus instead of teaching students other equally important skills. ( ProCon. "Standardized Tests - ProCon.org.) Many schools are so focused with test scores that they change their curriculum to include a large amount of test preparation. (ProCon. "Standardized Tests - ProCon.org.) Most schools across America rely heavily on ineffective overuse of standardized testing. The test can be very helpful, but not in intense and stressful situations. (Ravitch.151) Some schools place too much responsibility and accountability on the teachers and educators. (Ravitch.154 ) Critics would argue that certain standardized tests do not meet the qualifications necessary to judge the progress of a student or a teacher. (Ravitch.152 ) Not only is testing used to evaluate a student, but also teacher achievement. (ProCon. "Standardized Tests - ProCon.org.) Holding educators accountable for test scores places an unfair amount of stress on all parties involved, as well as inducing a difficult working atmosphere. (Brill, Allie. "Standardized Testing Leads To Unnecessary Stress On Students, Teachers.") Standardized testing generally imposes harsh consequences that bring many different problems, which often lead to dishonesty and a narrow perception of education from students and educators. (Gatt, Jeneba. "Atlanta's cheating ways: S...
When students have easier grading criteria, it increases their ability to learn the material instead of focusing on earning better grades without understanding the material. Students sometimes need grading criteria that will allow them to focus on their studying more than focusing on how they will be able to pass their classes with good grades that will not affect their GPA’s. For example, I have taken many classes throughout my college career such as Psychology, Philosophy, and Statistics, some of them I need as major requirements. I took the classes and I have no idea until this moment what I have learned in those classes. As said, I have learned the material for these classes to pass the exams, and forget what I have learned the day after the exam. In this case, I do not blame myself that I have not learned the material as I have to, because I learned it to pass the class with a good grade instead of passing the class with the
One change institutions should make to the grading system is to eliminate all factors that have noting to do with learning outcomes from affecting the students’ grade. According to the article, “Assessment of Learning Outcomes: What’s the difference?” written by Carnegie Mellon University, grades are often based on more than learning outcomes. Instructors usually include factors unrelated to learning outcomes such as attendance to class, participation, improvement and in some cases, grades are boosted a bit due to how hard the student is working.” These factors are