Effort+&+Recognition

Read and Reflect My approach to reinforcing student effort and providing students with regognition varies from student to student. I feel fortunate that in my position, I get to spend time one-on-one with my students to discuss their effort and progress. I am sometimes amazed at how brutally honest students are about their effort (or lack of) sometimes, and yet so unrealistic at others. I recognize that in many ways this is characteristic of the population of students I work with. How I acknowledge students and what I say to them greatly depends on the student. Some kids I know seem to really thrive on positive attention, while others view it as less than "cool". Some students also thrive on attention, positive or negative, and it can be difficult to provide them with positive recognition if they aren't demonstrating any effort.

In my ten years of working with students who have emotional impairments, I am a firm believer that student attitudes toward failure greatly impact their educational success. Students who think they have what it takes to be successful gend to have the internal drive to be successful. Sometimes students with a negative self image of their capabilities often distract from their lack of essential skills or knowledge with negative behavior. The idea of it being better in their eyes to be viewed as a "bad ass" as opposed to a "dumb ass". I have known students who, rather thank admit they need help, they would act out in order to be sent out of class to avoid the task at hand.

In many ways it seems like common sense to us as educators that there is a direct link between effort and recognition. I think that some students honestly believe that if they turn in assignment, even one they that they demonstrate minimal effort on, they expect to be successful. These students need to recognize that there is a direct correlation between how much effort they exert and how successful they can be, though I am not certain the most effective way to teach this. I love the idea of an "effort log" discussed in the article we read, but I am not sure how to teach students how to HONESTLY use such a tool.  Apply and Reflect  I LOVE the idea of creating your own motivational posters on bighugelabs.com!! I explored sevearl of the tools on the site, and can absolutely see myself using this site for all kinds of things, both for school and outside of. I like the idea of having students create magazine covers or trading cards as an assessment tool to demonstrate understanding of content learned. I personally have lots of ideas for creating motiviational posters. Like the [|article] describing one educator's experience of using the site of create motivational posters, I have admired this style of poster and found them to be rather pricey. I instantly began thinking of some fun posters I could create. I always sing the Wonderpets "Teamwork" theme song to my student council students, how cool would it be to capture a picture of them working together and title it "Teamwork" with the caption "What's gonna work? Teamwork" lyrics underneath. Or my current favorite phrase for one of my students is "It's cool to be a smarty-pants!" She's extremely bright and capable, but lazy as can be... I'd love to that on a poster with a picture of her working!

Currently my laptop is plugged in charging in the office while my phone syncs, and I am working on Bryan's in another room. Since I have limited access to my photos, I found the photo below of our chocolate lab and made this fun poster I intend to email to a friend who laughs about my making him wear a lifejacket on the boat this summer. Yes, I am aware that labs are naturally good swimmers, however I was hesitant about his ladder-climbing abilities to get back aboard...



