Christopher's Mindset

Describe three ways teachers can foster learning using positive affect in the classroom.  Be sure to include concrete examples of your strategies.

Positive affect is the concept explaining that connecting positive emotions to the learning experience can lead to desirable outcomes.  Perhaps the most important way for a teacher to promote positive affect is by utilizing the power of empathy.  When a teacher is excited about the material and in a good mood, students are likely to follow.  Of course the downside is that if a teacher is apathetic, the students will pick up on this and be more likely to zone out.  This can be taken advantage of by putting a big focus on behaving excitedly when teaching a subject or concept notorious for being “boring” to students or a concept for which few people see practical application. 

It is also important to avoid negative affect in order to promote positive affect.  Teachers need to build a nurturing learning environment in which students feel safe (and even good about) sharing their ideas and giving answers.  Foster a classroom in which it is unacceptable to put down other people’s ideas.  If a student feels comfortable sharing an idea (especially an unusual one) positive affect is most likely to be experienced.  Sharing is an important part of any classroom and this is one of the best ways to foster that.  Including students in making rules about discussions is a good way to do this.  Talk about “Golden Rule”-like ideas.  “How would you feel if someone thought you asked a silly question?”  Promoting active listening and fearless participation is key for all students.

Getting the students excited and interested in a topic is also a good way to promote positive affect.  This can be done by allowing them some autonomy when it comes to choosing topics for papers or research projects.  Personal interests can also be worked into common lessons.  My physics instructor would work funny stories and scenarios into his exams.  While physics was difficult for me, coupling this exam method with his engaging lecture style gave me good feelings about his class and in connection, the material.  If a student has good emotions to couple with material, they are very likely to perform better when asked about the material.

Ms. Gomez is ready to start today's lesson with her seventh-grade honors algebra class. As the students loudly enter the classroom and find their seats, she notices that Alyssa, a gifted student who always outperforms the rest of the class, is unusually quiet. Although Alyssa actively participated in all class discussions and group projects during the first weeks of class, Ms. Gomez has observed that her enthusiasm has been slowly dropping.

“All right everyone, get your journals out and start answering the question on the board individually. In five minutes you will need to get in pairs to discuss your answers,” Ms. Gomez says. In the meantime, Rebecca and Cat are whispering. “Yeah, she is so stupid. She is always acting like she knows everything,” says Rebecca. “Like she is so… smart.”

“We should do something to make her know how much we hate her,” Cat reacts. “Maybe we should do something to her locker.”

The five minutes are over, and Ms. Gomez starts walking around the paired students. She notices that Alyssa, Rebecca, and Cat have not written anything in their journals. When questioned why her paper is blank, Rebecca responds, “I just didn't get to it; I had something important to take care of first.” Ms. Gomez then moves to Alyssa. “What's going on with you, Alyssa?”

“I just can't think of an answer to the question,” answers Alyssa.

“What, the ‘smarter than everyone else Alyssa’ doesn't have an answer?” Cat asks ironically. “Did you take a stupid pill at lunch, smarty?”

“Cat, please turn to your partner and start working. We have a lot to do today,” Ms. Gomez says.

If you were mentoring Ms. Gomez, and she brought this scenario to you as an example of issues she is having motivating her students to learn what advice would you give her?  Be sure to keep your answer to strategies addressing motivation to learn.  Please address strategies for Alyssa, Cat and Rebecca separately, as they are individual students with individual motivations driving their behavior. 

Alyssa appears to be looking for something to occupy her time.  She is the first to comment out of her and Cat.  Cat seems to jump on board and overdo it by appealing to the topic Alyssa has chosen to distract her from the assignment.  The only thing which distracts from this theory is that Rebecca started off dejected before these comments started which implies that this has been going on for a while.  I would suggest that it is an ongoing trend that Alyssa is bored with school and Cat seeks Alyssa’s approval.  The two of them have made Rebecca the target of their en oui.  This has made Rebecca be on edge and unable to focus on her work.

For Alyssa I would suggest making school more interesting to motivate her.  Perhaps include more of her interests so that she feels willing to be involved in the work instead of feeling a need to distract.   Asking Alyssa what she would like in her lessons (or doing a general “pick your topic” assignment) would work well.  Cat is looking for acceptance from fellow students.  Perhaps Ms. Gomez could try to pair her with a compatible person for projects who would hopefully be a better influence and provide that sense of belonging Cat is looking for.  This would also be a good reason to work on the entire classroom to create an environment where there is a sense of teamwork and belonging for the whole class.  Rebecca is suffering from the torment of Alyssa and Cat.  According to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, Rebecca is so concerned with her well-being (in this case emotional and mental) to be able to focus on the school work.  Gaining Alyssa’s interest and aiding Cat’s need for social acceptance would alleviate the stress being put on Rebecca.

I can completely see why people see cockroaches as pests.  In so many ways they really are.  There are tons of them.  They don't really do us humans any good, though they do us bad, usually in the form of bites and such.  They don't look particularly cute or attractive at all.  Heck, a lot of people don't mind beetles, but these don't remind us of beetles (though they are).  Usually they don't show up unless the place is dirty enough for them to carve out a comfortable living.  Besides that, they're basically indestructible.  Sure, you can step on them, but try getting to the ones in the walls or under the floor boards.  Even with a good poisonous dusting you can't usually get rid of all of them.

Having said that, I also want to point out that for the longest time I didn't like cockroaches either.  Over the last few months I've made a conscious change to that though.  Our current place (which we will be moving out of soon enough) has a decent roach problem.  I don't like killing them.  I'll do mercy killings if they're still twitchy or something like that but basically dead, but that's it.  If they're turned over on their backs, I'll turn them right-side-up.  I don't mind them being around personally (though sometimes it's annoying to move them out of the shower if I'm getting ready for one, they don't like to cooperate, of course, neither do the grandfather spiders or the polies).  These ideas probably seem pretty gross to most people.  At one point I did complain about how they seem to be all over the place in our house, and Sam mentioned that maybe they just want to be noticed.  They don't want their existence or their deaths to be "just another notch."

I haven't been too sure where my recent affinity for roaches has come from.  I'm still not happy to get bitten occasionally.  But that's not enough for me to want to evict them or anything.  A few months back I even wrote a little story:

http://feil.livejournal.com/25090.html

I'm thinking that they're creatures like any others really.  What makes them worse to have around than most other bugs?  There's a host of spiders which bite us in our sleep, but as a household we don't mind those really (short of widows and recluses of course).  It might be just me trying to be different, but I feel like it's more than that.  I tie the roaches a lot to humanity.  I mean, besides the obvious non-too-flattering comparison, there's a dependence of roaches on people.  They wouldn't be as successful if it weren't for us humans.  If we were to go extinct, roaches may survive the reason we died, but without us around and our environmental advantages (heat, etc.) they would die out in mass numbers.  That idea happens to be backed by National Geographic. 

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/episode/aftermath-population-zero-3225/Videos#tab-Videos/05037_00

On a personal level, maybe there's an idealistic connection between me and the roaches.  Going back to Sam's talk about wanting to be noticed, maybe it's a reflection of what I want people to do with me.  If I can give the time of day to flip a roach (a creature "noone" likes) that others "should" be able to give me the time of day.  In my case not necessarily deservedly so.  That's sort of what I'm thinking mainly.  I am a bit of an attention hog, and while I don't like to admit it, I enjoy drama (*shivers*).

Beyond those things, though, I do believe they're pretty fascinating critters.  I sometimes wish other people would look beyond the "EWW, GROSS!" stereotype and look at them the way they would at ladybugs or ants.

I've always been a big fan of control.  When I was in Clarksville I was especially into control.  I was under the very mistaken impression that I had control over everything.  From being able to be whatever I wanted when I grew up to feeling like I could even control my sexual urges around the girls I lusted after.  Honestly.. yeah right. 

Here in Albuquerque I wanted to stay under these mistaken impressions.  I enjoyed feeling like I had the power.  Of course those feelings haven't been very conducive to having a very good life, or an honest life.  It's pretty understandable therefore that I've pissed off so many people.  I have fucked up enormously in that respect.  Thinking tonight I realize that there is so little that I have had control of in the past, at least in the way that I thought I did.  It's ridiculous.  If I hadn't left Clarksville when I did, I would be an extremely unready father right now.  It's been one big game of self-delusion.  "Bless your soul, you really think you're in control?"

It really is kind of funny to think about it when you consider that I've lived so much of my life around the idea that I had everything under control.  It's really apparent now, but at the time it didn't seem to make any difference to me.  It's weird how that seems to change so quickly.  It's also strange how that would counter and react with the new ideas I have about having influence over my own actions.  I guess the major difference is in thinking I'm in control and doing nothing about it and realizing I don't have much control and then exerting it where possible.  There's something about realizing that we have limits and finding that middle ground with forging our own destinies.  Nothing is black and white, though the shade of gray or bright red might be hard to distinguish at first.

Things get difficult when I think about how much of an idiot I was and still fall into every once and again.  Sam and I have had difficulties with that in our relationship with the way I've acted and reacted to things like that.  I've taken for granted the energy and such that I might have, or in fact that control.  Not being willing to admit defeat is not always a good point in a person, like with me.  Sometimes I need to admit that I can't do something, let loose of that control.  That's also an idea I need to keep in mind with my relationships, because people are not just items to have and to use, but people to be affected by and to make a positive difference.  A metaphor Sam used today in reference to a different subject was the sheep to slaughter idea.  I don't need to try and manipulate people like sheep, especially when I don't actually earn nearly that type of influence. 

Something important for me to learn here is to be more humble and to not think so highly and selfishly of myself.