As Practicums begin and I get the opportunity to begin being in schools on a more consistent basis, an inquiry questions I would like to learn more about comes to mind. I want to investigate further strategies that teachers, administrators, education assistants, etc… use within the school to motivate the unmotivated students. The students who simply refuse to participate in the classroom lessons, or who hate gym class and just will sit there and not participate. I do not want to be a teacher who just throws up my hands and moves on from these students in my class. I want to be a teacher who leaves no person behind and can elicit engagement from all my students to a certain degree. I am not going to be unrealistic, as much as I would like it to be the case, I know not every student I teach is going to love the lesson I am teaching, or the math that we are learning. etc. However, if I can at least make a conscious effort to design my lessons and teaching to work well with my students I would like to put in the effort to do so.
Throughout this inquiry and my time in my various practicum placements and time in schools in general I would like to observe a few things related to motivating the unmotivated students. First and maybe the most obvious I would like to observe the many different strategies educators use on individual students who need the extra motivation to get engaged in a lesson. I would like to identify a strategy teachers might use for a class as a whole to motivate the entire class to engage in a lesson, (the reason I want to see a whole class engagement strategy is because whether it is a good thing or bad thing, I was once a students and peer pressure is a reality. In some cases students will follow if the majority of the class is eager about something). I also would like to inquire with different teachers some ways they have maybe changed their way of teaching because of the students they have. Classes are different every year and teachers are forever learners, so I am curious how they are flexible as educators if they have a harder class one year and then an easier one, how does this dynamic change their presence in the classroom? Do they change, or do they keep a steady teacher persona year to year no matter the group?
These are somethings I hope to both observe and question/inquire about while I begin my practicum and continue being in and out of various schools and around educational professionals.
