M&M&M Analysis

Write a one page, single-spaced paper (or blog post) responding to the following prompt:

Based on your field experience observations to this point, what are the students' needs with regard to:

1. Metacognition
2. Mindset
3. Motivation

For each of these areas, write a robust paragraph analyzing the students' needs and how you plan to address those needs when you teach your lesson. Use and underline vocabulary from the theories as you complete your analysis and to justify your plan.

1. Metacognition is basically "learning how you learn". This isn't a really easy thing for me to evaluate as an observer. But, I have noticed that most of the students in the 7th grade classes I've been observing seem pretty content with just doing whatever the teacher wants them to do. For example, when starting a new unit, she gives them a notes sheet with fill in the blanks for them to use as a study guide for the rest of the unit. I haven't noticed any of the students choose to take notes in a different way. Which is not a bad thing, they all get the answers they need and have something to use as a resource. But I wonder what their note-taking techniques will be once they have to fend for themselves. I remember when I was in 7th grade, I never took real notes because I didn't feel like I needed them-it was all pretty self-explanatory. This was fine in junior high and high school, but once I got to college, I didn't know how to take informative, efficient notes. I would basically just try to hurry and write down every single thing the professor was saying. Because of this, I think it's really important to help students figure out what works best for them. So, when I teach my lesson, I want to also teach the visual notes technique that we covered earlier this unit. This will give the students an alternative option to bland note taking, and will help them figure out if this is a good technique for them to use. And, I think if they had more freedom in their note taking, it would allow them to feel more freedom in their learning as a whole. It would help them transition from passive learners, to active learners as they are allowed to develop a conditional metacognitive approach that they could choose to apply in any of their other classes as well. The only problem with this, is the fact that it won't be perfect on the first try. Visual note taking seems really unnatural the first few times. Since I probably won't be teaching more than 1 or 2 mini lessons, they might not have a chance to really solidify how they feel about this technique. But, hopefully it will be enough to spark their interest, and give them an alternative to the boring note taking.

2. Mindset is incredibly important in junior high! I would assume that most elementary school kids come into junior high with a growth mindset, but that it can very quickly change to a fixed mindset as they start comparing themselves to their peers and feel the mounting pressure of a higher level of education. In the classes I've been observing, most of the students seem willing to explore new concepts, actually seem interested in learning, and are not just putting down answers to get a good grade. But, there are definitely a few that seem to have resigned themselves to failure. And interestingly, the only students I've noticed who appear to have a fixed mindset are females. I'm not sure exactly what it is about girls and science, but it is definitely consistent with the self-worth concept we covered in class: Males tend to overestimate themselves, and females tend to underestimate themselves. This is very apparent when the teacher asks for someone to volunteer an answer, there are way more boys willing to share their opinion (even if they are consistently incorrect) than girls willing to share theirs. But, I would still say most of the girls in class have a growth mindset about the subject, but for whatever reason, they aren't willing to share their ideas, and that's fine. Where I feel like I'm getting the most conclusive fixed mindset vibes is when I'm walking around the class as the students do an activity or worksheet. There are 4 girls in particular who seem to be pretty set in their presumed state of failure. I'll go around and ask them if they need any help, and they will say things like "I'm not good at science" and try and get me to just give them the answers instead of helping them figure it out for themselves. I try and encourage them to think about the material in a new way, and applaud them when they start to understand, but it is really hard to change their opinions on their own intelligence. I honestly don't know how to address those needs when I teach my lesson. The only ways I can think of to help this would be to have multiple small activities where the students can go over the material multiple times at their own pace. And to ask a few questions before the lesson that they don't have any base of knowledge for, then ask again after the lesson so they can easily see how they have learned something since the start of the class period.

3. Motivation is probably one of the most important things for our students. In the two classes I've been observing, there are only a handful of students who seem to have little, or no motivation to do their own work. But, they do all have strong social goals. They would much rather talk to (or get answers from) their friends than do their work. This only seems to be a problem when the students are doing independent work. When the teacher has them doing group work, they are actively engaged and seem to be having fun. I would say this is an interesting combination of both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. They are extrinsically motivated by their social goals, but they are also intrinsically motivated because they are more likely to get into a "flow" state where they don't even realize how much time has passed while they are doing the activity. Plus, when they are doing group activities, they tend to have a lot more fun (cognitive and emotional arousal), so they are more likely to remember the information. Not only that, but when they are working as a group, they feel like they will succeed in the task set before them, so they are way more likely to try. I actually hadn't planned on using a group activity until I started writing this, but now that I'm really thinking about it, group activities are awesome! The teacher I've been observing does group activities all the time, and I guess I just never really considered why. But, obviously she knows what's up: group activities are a great way to motivate students to learn, much better than scaring them into learning so they will get good grades. But even with group activities, I think relevance is the most important motivator. Or really, irrelevance is the easiest way to un-motivate someone. At least, this was true for me: if a lesson wasn't relevant, I didn't care; if there was a fun, but seemingly irrelevant activity, I labeled it as busy work. So, in the lesson I give, and in all future lessons when I'm a teacher, I want to make sure to relate most, if not all, of the content to something applicable to the students lives, or show them why the information is important. And by combining both group work, and relevance, I think the motivation for the students to learn will definitely go up.