Motivation - A reflection

I was in my second semester of junior college and still was waffling about what I wanted to do.  I had originally been accepted at a state school, but after starting the semester and not enjoying my classes at all, I transferred down to see if I could work my way through general education classes while I made up my mind about my future.  Shortly after, it was made up for me.

I enrolled in Marine Science on a whim.  I surf, I like the beach, well why not?  So I sat my first day near the back in a large lecture hall in Orange Coast College, and took out my notebook.  As the lights dimmed, I relaxed a bit in the pleasant darkness, then the instructor started to speak.  I could tell in the first 5 minutes that this class was going to be different, but I didn't realize the impact it would have on me.  The professor, Dr. Tom Garrison, wove a story with his words that was easy to follow, interesting, and yet full of ideas and information.  His passion was unmistakable, and it immediately drew me into class.  I still remember, to this day, his remarkable lectures.  His genuine excitement about the subject rubbed off on all of his students.  I remember learning about the intricacies of water, how oceans were explored, and the wonder of it all.  I remember learning things that moved me, like pollution, and exploitation.  I remember the image he showed us of the anguish on Robert Falcon Scott's face when he found out that Amundsen had reached the South Pole first, and how his team had perished on the ice, only 11 miles away from the safety of their next depot.  He used his visuals and voice in concert to reach and move people, and he was an expert at it.  And through all of this everyone could see that he truly cared about each and every one of his students.  It felt like he was talking to you and you alone, even though there were 300 other students around you.

As a student, that made me want to work for him.  I wanted to show him I shared his passion and that I appreciated all that he taught me.  He inspired me with his words, impressed me with his knowledge, and could mesmerize his audience, but at the same time be easy going and approachable.  That one class made up my mind.  I started taking every Marine Science class there was, and after the completion of my AA transferred to CSULB and completed my degree in the subject.  Picking up a minor along the way, I worked in an environmental lab that performed water testing for a while, then eventually went into teaching, wanting to share my passion for the subject with my students just like Dr. Garrison did.  I am still inspired to this day, and while I do not lecture as much in my classes any more, when I do I try to emulate his style.  Unfortunately, he passed away about a year ago, and I never did get back to OCC to speak with him and let him know how he inspired me, but I do keep one of his books close at hand to remind me of how I want to present myself to my students on a daily basis.

Two semesters later, I was enrolled and excelling in a Marine Biology course, just wrapping up a few things before transferring.  Near the end of that semester, I was getting quite busy and overwhelmed, and I let my studies lax a bit.  I took one too many classes that term and really didn't have time for them all, and as a result my grades suffered a bit.  Unfortunately, I did not put enough time into my Marine Biology class (and the required term paper), and I ended up with a D in the class.  A D - in the subject I loved and was so gung-ho about.  It was crushing at first, and I didn't understand it, and I'm still not all that sure exactly how it happened.  But it did, and there I was stuck with it.  I was a little demoralized and intimidated as a result as I started at CSULB, but after a few months I decided that I was not going to let that D define me.  I re-dedicated myself to school and put 100% effort into my biology courses.  I ended up with an A in my first semester of college bio, one of only 7 out of the hundred plus students in the course.  That revitalized me, and I didn't have much trouble believing in myself after that.

Part of teaching is being a model.  I realize that students are motivated by different things, but while it's extremely difficult to discover precisely what motivates others, we all know exactly what motivates ourselves.  So what I try to do, on a daily basis, is to share my experiences with my students and let them know that I support them.  I'm not a talking robot, or someone that is just assigning them grades, I am a human that went through the same experiences that they are going through now.  I tell them of my successes, and of my failures.  Things I found easy, and things I found difficult.  I also let them know that the things I found difficult were the things that I learned the most from.  When they ask how I know so much about invertebrates like squid, lobsters, and jellies, I explain I owe it all to that invertebrate zoology class that I scraped by with a C in - the most challenging course I ever took.  Not easy, but hey, I remember it all.  And I don't remember a whole lot about the physiology courses where I received an A.  Challenging things result in the highest reward.

So as a teacher, I can teach them all I know, and then some, but what I absolutely try to do is to motivate them to be the best human being they can be, both in their educational careers and in their personal lives.  I try to motivate them to challenge themselves, triumph over adversity, and come out of it better than they were before.

What I try to avoid at all costs, is motivating my students by fear or by stress.  I try to avoid phrases such as "If you don't figure this stuff out, you might not pass" or "I have to notify your parents because of your low grade."  Students have enough pressures on their plate without their teacher adding another layer to that, and I've found that very few of high school age thrive when stress is their motivator.  Rather, I use phrases like "You might be struggling on your own, but I bet together we could figure this out and get you on the right track" or "The tests will get harder as the year goes on, but you will see things you are already familiar with so I have confidence that you will adapt and succeed."  To a lesser extent, I am trying to phase out extrinsic rewards, as while I think they can motivate, they perhaps do so for the wrong reasons.  I've used them sparingly this year while trying to increase the interest of my lessons and projects, and so far my students have been shining compared to past years.  Now to see if it continues in semester two, particularly with the seniors...

In closing, an infographic that represents what I am trying to currently accomplish as far as student motivation:

Depth of Knowledge and the Impact It Has on Teaching

I view depth of knowledge in the classroom as something that is essential to preparing students for their next steps educationally.  It doesn't stop there, however.  Being able to apply learned skills to complete complex tasks is an ability that will benefit just about anyone in real life.  As such, it has an important role in my teaching and I am constantly re-evaluating my curriculum to ensure I am challenging my students at a higher level.

Like Bloom's Taxonomy, depth of knowledge is a pyramid, built on basic skills and culminating in the ability to think on a higher level.  I think the pyramid analogy works well for both as they are structures built on a wide base.  Students often are responsible for recalling many basic facts, but must use many of those to understand a handful of concepts.  They take those concepts and apply them to few real world problems and try to come up with solutions.  Then finally, they take their solutions, and the solutions of others, and try to put it all together to produce something complex that demonstrates their complete understanding.   The process is the same for the master's student constructing a thesis or a second grader learning about why we have time zones, both build on what they know to attain higher levels of thinking.

After gaining an understanding of Webb's depth of knowledge, I realize that I am actually doing a lot of this type of learning building in my classes, even though I wasn't familiar with Webb's actual work.  I owe much of this to working in a school that emphasizes classroom technology and the value it brings to teaching our students.   As a teacher in this environment, it becomes obvious really quickly that lower level tasks like learning facts will lead to a lot of bored students.   They have so much access at their fingertips, that it simply becomes tedious to them. As such, we learn skills on a daily basis.  Not to say we don't learn facts, but we learn about those facts in context, seeing and practicing their application in real life situations.  Often my students will take these concepts and produce something where they take all this evidence and use that to justify what they believe about the concept.   I believe that this should be the "new normal" in our classrooms, where strategic thinking is focused on rather than rote learning.  What I like most about the concept of depth of knowledge is that it never ends.  There are nearly unlimited possibilities as far as classroom activities and projects that can be used to get our students thinking in extended and complex ways.  It challenges our students and makes their classroom experience more rewarding, and it does the same for we teachers.

One think I always keep in mind when teaching is "what am I trying to accomplish here."  When I look at this from an even bigger view, I have realized that all the facts and concepts specific to my subject area aren't necessarily what's important.  Having said that, by applying depth of knowledge in my specific content area, I can teach my students skills that will help them succeed in many different situations.  For example, how many jobs or careers are there where a person is confined to their own area, learning about facts and reporting them to others?  I can't think of many.  As a result, when we learn about facts in class we get into groups to discuss and build on concepts.  I often tell my students that knowledge is of little use if we don't put it to work for us.  These discussions lead to a richer learning experience where students are active in their own learning.  When we get into groups and create things, like infographics, videos, padlets, or presentations to teach others, we are having a good time, but we are also performing rigorous tasks that is solidifying the knowledge so we can own it.  We aren't just learning about marine wind and water currents, we are discussing where those currents exist and why.  We are predicting where they should be and creating our own maps.  We are taking what we know about these currents, looking up in the sky, and understanding how they affect the weather at this very moment, as well as in the future.

So while I may be focusing on the marine sciences, I believe that teaching to depth of knowledge has benefits for my students that reach far outside the classroom.  I want them to take something they learn, and apply it.  I want them to take what they applied, and create something with it.  Then, I want them to take what they created, examine it,  and reflect on how much more they understand than when they started.  It is far more impactful than having students learn some facts and repeat them on a test, and I feel that this type of deeper learning experience will better prepare them for an increasingly competitive world.

About me and meeting the needs of learners

About me:

My name is Eric Wendland, and I've been teaching for 7 years, the last 5 at a private Catholic high school.  I love using new technology and learning new and exciting ways to present my material.





My Classroom

I would say I am quite easy going as a teacher goes.  My classes tend to be very dynamic, where students are always thinking and working on making things.  From the first day I try to build relationships with my students as I find that students are much more invested in their work when they feel the teacher is supportive of them.  I focus on project based learning in my classrooms, which helps maintain a fun, active atmosphere and keeps the students so busy that class time tends to fly by.

I have always been an active, global, intuitive, and visual learner, and this definitely comes out in my teaching style.  I emphasize collaborative work in my classrooms, and we focus on how things work rather than understanding every detail about them.  We watch plenty of video, make our own visual aids, perform laboratories and create things that explain what we are learning.  I like to teach my students skills that help them learn in every class - not just mine - and things that will benefit them down the road when they go to college.  In short, I try to make them learners, not just students that remember things for a test.  I have found that maintaining a light atmosphere and exuding a positive personality,  I build very positive relationships with my students which results in getting high quality work from them.

Meeting the needs of all learners

I teach Marine Biology, which is a mixed class at my school.  I tend to have a very wide range of learners and aptitudes.  I get the sophomores who might not be quite ready for chemistry yet, and I also get the seniors who may be taking other AP level courses and want to take an elective science to round out their curriculum.  On top of this, the older students  are very aware of how they learn things while the sophomores are still trying to figure things out.  At first, keeping things meaningful for my high level students and still making the information accessible to my sophomores was challenging to say the least, but after a few years I've found a few strategies that help me meet the needs of as many students as I can.

I would say that the most effective strategy I have found to reach all learners is by monitoring how I group students for the projects we create.  I like to try different groupings based on the type of the project, how difficult it is, and how easily it can be differentiated.  When the project is more challenging, I tend to use homogeneous groupings more often than mixed groups.  This allows me to alter the project as needed to challenge high level student groups, or dial the difficulty back a bit for groups that may be struggling.  It also allows me to do small group instruction for the students who will benefit from it while the ones that are independent and ready to go can do their thing.  For projects that aren't as challenging and are accessible to most students, I will mix the students up a bit.  I find that the higher level students benefit from helping their peers, while the students who struggle benefit by learning from other students rather than from me all the time.

Another strategy I use is to give students options when they are completing projects.  Rather than having all students turn in a single type of product, I will allow them some latitude in showing their understanding of the material.  For example, they might be creating some media to explain an issue that affects our oceans.  They can explain this issue through a video, a podcast, by creating promotional materials, an infographic, and so on.  I find that the students relax more when they feel they can explain things in their own way, and as a result I get some very high quality products from them.