lara mentorship

This weeks blog is about behaviour. In my class I chose to use the reinforcement theory on one of my students, Joe. The reinforcement theory suggests that people with good behaviour should be rewarded and people with bad behaviour do not get rewarded at all. The student may also receive a negative reaction. I chose a student in the classroom that does not always have the best behaviour in class. I personally believe that that this theory is one of the most effective to getting good behaviour from students. When students see positive results when effort is put in.

This student does not necessarily have terrible behaviour, but there are times in class when he does not participate or refuses instruction. It is not necessarily a daily occurrence, but it does happen often enough. There have been many times in the class when we would have to encourage him time and time again to do the classwork and put any effort into it. I believe by placing this behaviour theory in the classroom it will help the students improve and make the overall environment better. Using the behaviour theory I have begun to see fair changes in the student's behaviour. When one student notices others getting good marks and good comments from working hard and putting effort they realize that need to start to change. Whenever other students participate and engage in the class the teacher will encourage that and give very positive comments. When students don't participate they are not rewarded with positive comments. The are told that what they are doing is wrong and they need to improve. Many students wish to hear positive comments about them from their teacher. Seeing other students get these comments with help motivate them to do better.

I speak from personal experience. I used to be that student in the classroom that did not participate and did minimal work. At some point you realize how awful it feels to only be seen in a negative way in the classroom. I used to get so embarrassed and shamed when a teacher would call on me to answer a question and I wouldn't respond. Hearing all the nice comments that the other students were getting motivated me to want to participate and get better marks. This has done nothing but benefit me in the long run. I have been able to come out of my comfort zone little by little and I have seen a significant difference with my marks.

Every class I notice this student consistently improve. He participates more and more and his mark is changing reflecting the new effort he has been putting into school work. There will always be challenges in the classroom like this but the most important thing is know how to come back from these setbacks and move forward to improve. I am so proud to say that I was placed in a classroom with such amazing students with minimal negative behaviour. This student continues to put himself out there and work harder in the classroom.

The next part of the blog this week is about the curriculum and how people are marked. One current curriculum states that students marks should be assessed separately from their learning skills. I think that students academic marks should be separated. I do not think it is fair to mark someone based on attendance, submitting work on time or completion of homework. You can be a very intelligent person but have a bad work ethic. A bad work ethic i believe does not change your intelligence and it should not affect your overall mark. Some students miss a lot of school for reasons that can not be controlled. Something like that would not have a say in a student's academic marks.

I think there is one main negative in this. Students will take advantage of the fact that they can still get a high mark and only put minimal effort. Most students will see this and take it as an opportunity to not do much work. I do believe that this can be avoided by setting limits between teachers and students so some things won't end up consistent repeated problems.

Also speaking from experience, I have trouble submitting work on time, getting to school on time and many other things that have no say with my academics. Even though there are times I hand assignments in late it does not make the effort or the quality of my work any less proper. It can be handed in a day late or on time and it should still be marked the same way. When and how the assignment is being handed in should not play a role in the overall mark. As students get older they start to develop more and more responsibilities. It becomes a very hard task to do all schoolwork for a certain time and at some points in the year it gets harder for students to get to school on time. For example in the winter it is much harder for students to get to school. The school depends on the public transit system to get all the student to school on time, which I think is absolutely ridiculous. Public transportation does not care about the student getting to school on time and there have been many times where an OC transpo bus has passed right by me and made me late to school. The school is relying on a system that transports thousands of people every day. Students rarely get sympathy from teachers for lates when 70% of the time it is not the students fault. I do not believe that me being late to school affects my academics. Students have multiple responsibilities and it is hard most of the time to balance everything. With a job, school, family and extracurricular activities the students can get overwhelmed very quickly. I am an honour roll student with good grades in my classes, who is not that great with time management. None of this changes my intelligence and it definitely should not affect how well I do in school.

To conclude I believe that learning skills should be separated from marks for all the reasons stated above and more. Work ethic and time management are definitely important to succeed in life but it should not define how a student does in school. Everything has negative aspects to it but here is no problem we can not overcome. No system will ever be perfect but in my opinion this is the better one.