Final blog- urban settings v rural settings

In my final blog I looked at schools in in urban settings and compared them to schools in rural settings. At first I tried gathering information about some schools near Oakland California. I wanted to compare an inner city school in Oakland and then the small town of Canyon California. What I found was that Canyon seemed not to exist in the eyes of the state. The state of California had no records for test scores for the school in Canyon, they had a chart displaying test scores, however, all the numbers were filled in with stars. As for the U.S. census, they did not recognize Canyon at all, not as a village, town or city. This puzzled me since the school had a web site with an address in “Canyon, California”. After my unsuccessful try I moved to to school a little closer to home. I moved onto Port Huron schools, on the east side of the state of Michigan, for my urban school. For my rural school I then moved north to a school that combines two towns, Croswell and Lexington. I found that the size of the city did not correlate to the number of families living in poverty, Lexington a community of almost 3,700 people had only 4.2% of it’s families living in poverty while Croswell, a town of 2500 people had 10.4% of it’s families living below the poverty level. Port Huron topped both with 13.4% of it’s families living in poverty. The smaller Cros-Lex school topped both Port Huron high schools in standardized testing results. Their subject matter with the highest percent of children at a proficient level was reading at 85%, and their lowest was Social Studies at 45%. While this may not seem so low at first compared to other subjects in other schools it is important to note that in both Cros-Lex high school and Port Huron
Northern high school there were more students in the advanced levels of social studies than in the proficient levels. Port Huron high school came in with the lowest numbers for all three schools in each category. Testing 33% proficient in math, 59% in reading, and 50% in science. Cros-Lex school tested 61%,85%and 75%; while Port Huron Northern tested at 50%,71% and 62%. Since all three schools are in the same area of the state I felt they all had some of the same advantages. To name a few would be the historical value of the area, their proximity to Canada, and (most important to me) an art district in Port Huron that is making a revival of sorts. There are an assortment of museums dedicated to Thomas Edison who had lived there as a child as well as nautical museums about the areas rich maritime history. The closeness of Canada I feel could be an asset simply because of the opportunity to reflect on the educational process’ similarities and differences. Like I said the rebirth of an art district in the town is what really excites me. As a future art teacher it is an invaluable resource to have working artists in the area who can talk to your students about how the subject relates to life outside the classroom. This also provides the opportunity for field trips that don’t have to take you all the way to Detroit to view art. In that respect both areas are close enough to Detroit that a day trip to the DIA is always an option.

2 million minutes for June 22nd

2 Millions Minutes is trying to persuade its viewers that American students are falling behind students from other countries in terms of academic achievement. This argument is supported by most measures of academic achievement. What are your thoughts on this "crisis"? How will you respond as a teacher when you have your own students?


As someone who is going to be an art teacher this “crisis” does not matter to me. I feel that it was pointed out by the creator and by all of the participants that each system has it’s own advantages and pitfalls. My response as teacher would be to encourage a greater global and cultural awareness. I believe it’s important for the students to be able to see how we as countries are interconnected and how we have, and continue to, effect each other. I would like to show them the effects we have on each other through the lens of power relationships, ultimately expressing to them that knowledge is power. I feel this could be a good motivational tool in encouraging them to want to become better learners since most every teenage student can relate to feelings of oppression in some fashion. In order to help them become better learners, I would also like to teach kids proper study skills so that they have a better understanding of what kind of effort is expected of them. As we learned earlier, praising a child’s intelligence can damage their self esteem and prevent them from understanding the actual amount of effort it takes to accomplish a difficult task. This is why I believe it is important to teach secondary level students the necessary tools to be effective learners, and reinforce in them that struggles and setbacks are universal regardless of age and experience. I think it will be an interesting mix that at times may be a struggle. However, I feel that as an art teacher I have the perfect avenue to inspect cultures of the world as all art is spoken through the language of a culture. It’s the study skills that would be outside my certified area of expertise as recognized by the state, however, someone needs to teach these skills and I feel if I can make it through college I will have learned through experience, some effective study skills.

Considerations of an urban setting from June 17th

Have you ever considered teaching in an urban school, especially a school that has a high proportion of low-income students? Have you ever considered working with African American students or students from a different ethnicity than yourself? What are your candid thoughts and feelings when imagining yourself as a teacher in these situations?

Unfortunately it’s because of stories in the media, normally negative, that I generally think about teaching in an urban setting. I feel this is not giving the urban setting a fair chance, however, not being familiar with anything close to an urban setting I have a hard time envisioning what it would be like. I have thought a bit about a low-income teaching situation in some depth. I was introduced to the concept of low-income teaching by a friend who had taught in southern California and said she did not give homework. I was surprised by this until she explained that so many of the children were immigrants and didn’t have stable living situations or have adequate resources available to them. This brought a realization to me that I was grossly unprepared to deal with situations like that. I would like to be able to work with African American children and other minorities, especially with Native Americans. I think it would be very satisfying to be able to give these kinds of students a sense of self-worth and empowerment. I would like to be able to communicate to them the importance of culture and history through art, also the relationship between education and power. My only reservation is like I stated earlier, that I’m simply not equipped with the knowledge of how to communicate effectively. I suspect as I progress through the education program at MSU, and into student teaching, the knowledge will come. It will be up to me to further my cultural understanding and prepare me for the cultural diversity in my teaching that was lacking in my public education. I believe I have the desire to further my cultural understanding, how that will translate to an ability to communicate effectively, is obviously unknown.

inquiry project 2 assessment 2

I was not happy with my first assessment on motivation. I felt like, how could I have found two things (reading and tadpole catching) this child is supposed to enjoy and not be able to motivate her? What I decided was that the reward for doing the work, tadpole catching, was too near to her to allow her to focus on the task at hand. I felt like I was taking someone who was starving and asking them to do a difficult task in a crowded restaurant at dinner time. I decided to create a setting more conducive to learning, so this time I took her to an elementary school classroom to perform my assessment. My plan for this assessment was like the first assessment in that she would be involved in studies related to reading that didn’t involve reading whole books, given a break, then resume with actual reading. My motivation if she showed signs of mental fatigue and frustration this time was going to be an offer for ice cream on the way home. What I found was similar to the first assessment in the beginning, she was motivated and ready to learn and looked forward to the first break and the opportunity to play on the playground. What I was surprised to find was that after break when we went back to reading she was still highly motivated to read. The project this time was more than just reading the book, as it had been the previous time. This time we were discussing how to find the main theme or idea of the story. To do this we used a dry erase board to create lists of important things to remember and consider. I let her take control of writing and making the lists, this seemed to be the biggest motivator to her. I, for the sake of comparison started her with a book she had already read and then moved to a book she had not read. With the first book she easily identified what the main idea was and was able to explain how she came to that conclusion. With the second book we started by using the same strategies she had used to identify the idea of the first book. We looked at the title and the picture on the front of the book and made our guess. The pleasant surprise was that the story was not fully reflected in the title and cover art. She had to inspect each drawing and draw new conclusions about what was being said. This change in strategies didn’t slow her down, in fact she was excited to learn of the new connections that could be made from the details of the artwork. We ultimately changed our opinion of the main idea of the story while learning the lesson that you can’t judge a book by it’s cover. I never did have to offer her the ice cream to get her work done, the ability to actively participate and make suggestions to the answers were enough to keep her going through the end of the work.

the value of extrinsic motivation from June 8th

If extrinsic motivation is so bad why don’t educators change?

On the surface this sounds like a very simple question to answer, however, with a better understanding of the different forms of extrinsic motivation one will see that not all extrinsic motivation is bad. It isn’t until one admits that “extrinsically motivated behaviors are not inherently interesting and thus must initially be externally prompted” that they can see the purpose of extrinsic motivation. The problem arrises when many of the teachers who use extrinsic motivation don’t know how to reach the student and help guide the extrinsic motivation closer to intrinsic motivation. This disconnect occurs when teacher fail to relate the worth of the material in the outside world. If a student feels like the material does not pertain to them they begin to feel it is unimportant and move towards a position of amotivation; amotivation as described by Ryan and Deci (2000) “is the state of lacking an intention to act.” This is not always entirely the fault of the teacher, when you take into account each child has a different life experience therefore they will all be extrinsically motivated differently. It could take a teacher half of the school year to fully understand each child individually and know how to motivate them. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t strive for such abilities, it simply states that teachers have such little time with a child in the reality of their education that is hard to expect them to be able to motivate every singe child in every single subject. This is why the best kind of motivation a teacher could give at any level of a child’s education is that of praise, specifically the praise of their effort. Studies by Dweck (1999) suggest that children are more likely to continue working on a difficult project despite setbacks if their effort had been praised on previous projects. To sum it up, extrinsic motivational tactics are very volatile, when fully understood and properly applied they can also very good motivational tools. When methods of motivation are in question, always resort back to the praise of effort. It can have some pretty amazing results.

inquiry project 2 assessment 1

For my second inquiry project I decided to take my niece who will be in second grade next year, and find out what motivates her to learn how to read. I was especially interested because she is already a full grade year behind in her reading despite her claiming to enjoy reading. For my assessments I have watched and interacted with her during her first session of a summer tutoring. She was given a list of 100 of the most common words a child should know for each grade, she demonstrated she could read 93% of the words for the second grade level and 83% for the third grade level. So the question became, if she knows the words why is she behind in reading? I guessed it must simply be a lack of motivation due to the simplicity of the assigned reading. So to encourage her to read the assignments I was giving her I gave her two different kinds of extrinsic motivation, one was study with lunch and snacks as a reward. this motivated her as far as lunch. At lunch I also took her outside to the pool that is full of tadpoles. She showed a great interest in the tadpoles so I decided that when we started on the work after lunch I would use playing with the tadpoles as motivation to get her to read the second half of the day. That wasn’t exactly how it played out, I gave her some reading assignments to read to herself first and aloud second. Once she had read the material to herself (with my assistance on words she was unfamiliar with) she showed signs of fear over the depth of the material she was reading. She began to show signs of a student who’s intelligence had been praised rather than their effort. She was eager to read when she first arrived for her tutoring session, however, as the reading became more difficult she began to show signs of stress and a lack of emotional control. For example during the out loud reciprocal teaching portion, she began to display symptoms of helpless hannah, she shut down and wouldn’t read. Her head was sagging and cocked to one side while she mumbled almost as if she were pouting. Her lips didn’t move when she talked and she wouldn’t look directly at the paper she was reading. Almost as if looking directly at the words would defeat her totally. It took much attention, gentle encouragement and reminding of how her effort had gotten her this far, along with instruction on proper methods, before she would read louder and clearer. This did not however lead to her reading with more confidence. What I did find encouraging was that even after having struggled earlier that day she went to the library and enrolled in a summer reading program. Later when she arrived home she read the homework I had given her for a half an hour before dinner. Then after dinner and a brief swim break she went back to reading for close to an hour before bed. All reading was voluntary and done with out suggestion.

three motivational constructs from june first

Choose three motivation constructs in the Santrock chapter and give specific examples from your own learning that illustrate their meaning.

In the early years of my educational career I was introduced to Behavioral Motivation. It was second grade and I was struggling with another student to get all of my homework done. The teacher introduced to us the idea of a chart taped to our desk to help us keep track of our homework. It would work like this, we would tape a piece of graph paper to the upper left corner of our desk and as we completed assignments we could color in a square. Once all the squares were colored in we would be rewarded with the opportunity to have lunch with our teacher. We both enthusiastically accepted the offer, and it wasn’t until later in life I realized I had been bribed to do my homework and didn’t feel as good about sharing that story.
As I reached the end of my public education I was sensitive about how others might view my intelligence, in an effort not to look dumb I took math, science, and english all four years. While this may seem like a wise move, the classes I took as a senior didn’t challenge me as much as simply taking them suggests. I also decided to enroll in a college course my senior just to try and show initiative. This as a classic example of social motivation.
In pursuit of my bachelors degree I took a 400 level painting course with 2 different professors for different perspective. What I got was one teacher that believed in the idea of cognitive motivation and one that did not. The professor who belied in the more cognitive approach allowed me to develop my ideas and the themes for my paintings and praised my intense efforts on my few paintings. In contrast the other professor insisted I couldn’t see all possibilities or potential for my subject unless I created a multitude of images, suggesting I should have more than one work going at all times.