I began a book called "Punished by Rewards" by Alfie Kohn. Published in 1993, Mr. Kohn stepped out of the prevailing theories of the time. He incises the management in the work place, teachers in education and parents at home and opens up their flagrant and faulty use of rewards as motivational tactics.
I was glued to this theory of abandoning rewards and grades and replacing extrinsic motivators with intrinsic ones. Mr. Kohn's claim is that when you use rewards to motivate employees, students or children, you become focused on the performance and not on the process of learning. The "if you do this then you get that" theory steals motivation from people and replaces it with a false focus on the "that."
All educators should read this book just for its opposing point of view to trends in the last many years.
The greatest question he asks is not "How can you get your students motivated?" but "How can you best create a learning environment where students don't feel controlled and in which they are encouraged to think about what they are doing?"
As I read the first chapters, and I have many more to go, I felt afraid of what the theory entailed as I believed in behaviorism. I have my doubts now as to its ability to generate atmospheres for true learning.
I'll keep you posted on my progress in the book and whether Mr. Kohn succeeded in he arguments and convinced me to follow his ideas.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Eruption of Experience with the Volcano Lesson Plan
In class, we were all given a direct instruction lesson plan by Dr. Smirnova and asked to evaluate it in depth as against preassigned Mount Saint Mary College criteria.
The lesson plan I was assigned was on volcanoes and was designed for fourth grade.
I spent a long time reading each section and contemplating its content with the MSMC rubric for lesson plans next to the lesson plan on my desk.
The process was unique to me since I had only written my own lesson plans in Curriculum Planning and waited for their review by the professor. I had never had the opportunity to evaluate a lesson plan of someone else. Actually, I felt strange doing this and even emailed Dr. Smirnova about whom would have access to my comments. I was assured that the original author would not see my comments and that just Dr. Smirnova would. I felt way out of my league of experiences to think that I could, with only 9 classes under my belt, evaluate someone else's work. I thought, "Who am I do this?"
I continued however. I looked at a section of the lesson plan, looked through my notes and readings and even ventured onto the Internet for further clarification, and wound up back at the MSMC rubric. I picked apart every section. I enjoyed it to the extent that I felt I found an item of content that I thought was misplaced somehow. How it was misplaced, I couldn't have been sure. I did find issues that I was able to support with my understanding of what the lesson should have looked like by referring to my notes, etc.
I also learned several things from the content that I felt was appropriate. I really liked how the author mentioned the lessons that were coming next and connections made to similarities with prior lesson content. But, importantly, I realized that this author didn't check for understanding very much or at least did not spell out when he or she was going to do it.
Structurally, all parts of the typical DI lesson plan were met but I really found I could only reach "2's" on the rubric.
I could only hope that someone would spend as much time as I did on this review on one of my own lesson plans. I believe in learning by doing and learning from my mistakes. I would also like to know if I have the correct idea on the items that the reviewer felt I did correctly.
Overall, I appreciated the opportunity to compare and contrast: compare my ideas with those of someone else's about a direct instruction lesson and contrast what I believed to be correct content and style with content and style of another.
Read my next blog for some thoughts on an interesting book I am reading, "Punished by Rewards" by Alfie Kohn.
The lesson plan I was assigned was on volcanoes and was designed for fourth grade.
I spent a long time reading each section and contemplating its content with the MSMC rubric for lesson plans next to the lesson plan on my desk.
The process was unique to me since I had only written my own lesson plans in Curriculum Planning and waited for their review by the professor. I had never had the opportunity to evaluate a lesson plan of someone else. Actually, I felt strange doing this and even emailed Dr. Smirnova about whom would have access to my comments. I was assured that the original author would not see my comments and that just Dr. Smirnova would. I felt way out of my league of experiences to think that I could, with only 9 classes under my belt, evaluate someone else's work. I thought, "Who am I do this?"
I continued however. I looked at a section of the lesson plan, looked through my notes and readings and even ventured onto the Internet for further clarification, and wound up back at the MSMC rubric. I picked apart every section. I enjoyed it to the extent that I felt I found an item of content that I thought was misplaced somehow. How it was misplaced, I couldn't have been sure. I did find issues that I was able to support with my understanding of what the lesson should have looked like by referring to my notes, etc.
I also learned several things from the content that I felt was appropriate. I really liked how the author mentioned the lessons that were coming next and connections made to similarities with prior lesson content. But, importantly, I realized that this author didn't check for understanding very much or at least did not spell out when he or she was going to do it.
Structurally, all parts of the typical DI lesson plan were met but I really found I could only reach "2's" on the rubric.
I could only hope that someone would spend as much time as I did on this review on one of my own lesson plans. I believe in learning by doing and learning from my mistakes. I would also like to know if I have the correct idea on the items that the reviewer felt I did correctly.
Overall, I appreciated the opportunity to compare and contrast: compare my ideas with those of someone else's about a direct instruction lesson and contrast what I believed to be correct content and style with content and style of another.
Read my next blog for some thoughts on an interesting book I am reading, "Punished by Rewards" by Alfie Kohn.
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