Fortino Tafoya Essays (759 words) - Education, Psychology

Fortino Tafoya EDUC-113 Garcia 5-12-18 "How to Motivate Learning: Alternatives to Rewards" Reflection Educators have a responsibility to students that is separate from simply creating a space where they are comfortable and happy. As educators, we have a responsibility to challenge, hold accountable, pay attention to, modify, and adapt for our students. That is not to say we should shy away from our other responsibility, the responsibility to care for and foster our students. Dr. Richard Curwin understands these responsibilities with the professional clarity that only comes from a teacher who cares for his students learning and has been caring about their learning over their total comfort for a long time. His blog post, "How to Motivate Learning: Alternatives to Rewards" he details briefly his reasons for not using rewards or incentive-based learning in his classroom, then goes on to offer three alternatives to using rewards that are honest, caring and put learning and challenging students first, rather than using a reward or treat to get them to perform. Reading Curwin's article made me think about Pavlovian methods of behavior modification and why we use rewards in the first place. In fact, he frames his three suggestions as the necessary result of telling teachers to take away rewards in his other article, "Why Giving Bonus Money to Better Teachers Is Wrong." If you are going to take something away you must replace it with something, this is basic behavior modification strategy that he is using on his readers. But it also illustrates the way that reward systems and behavior modification can be boring and feel routine. In our EDUC-113 class, professor Garcia has gone over the use of rewards and incentives in our classrooms and one of the biggest takeaways I received was the idea to use the rules themselves as an incentive. Allowing students to create their own policies and rules if they can display proper behavior seems like a brilliant idea to me and one that can "show appreciation," "introduce an appropriate challenge" and "show genuine care", these are all three of Curwin's suggestions being used together combining an incentive with a rule - genius! I see myself using this strategy and reward in my own classrooms in the future. It is my goal to work with my junior high or high school students on understanding each other: my expectations, their own capacity for self-control and responsibility to let them create their own class rules and procedures for things like walking into class, talking during class, taking turns, how to form groups, etc. Other than this incentive and structured extra credit opportunities, I do not plan on using many incentives in my classroom. One key point in Curwin's article is when he mentions showing appreciation as an alternative to rewards, which use manipulation. I latched on to this when I remembered an example I had while substitute teaching in an 8th grade English class. A student was doing more talking than working and we had a collaborative assignment where students read stories and shared the story they read with a group then they all reflected in writing on the stories. This student hardly wrote anything on the page. I could have offered a reward if the student would finish but instead I noticed the boys perfect handwriting. I asked the student where he was at in the assignment then complimented him on his amazingly neat and clear handwriting. He was taken back a bit but then he said thank you, no one had ever complimented his hand writing before. This student was also a disabled student whose other hand did not have any fingers. I felt that this bit of appreciation was more powerful than an extra 5 minute s of lunch or a treat, because the student was smiling, felt proud and then almost completed the assignment. Small examples like this are way that show the huge power of appreciation over a reward. That student and I also made a connection as I was the first person to notice and compliment something about them. I truly believe Curwin's main point, that teacher's have a deeper responsibility to students is expressed in his desire to connect with and understand his students. The use of appreciation, analyzing

The Crucibles Relevance to todays Society Essay Example

The Crucibles Relevance to todays Society Essay Example The Crucibles Relevance to todays Society Paper The Crucibles Relevance to todays Society Paper Another example of how the themes of The Crucible relate to modern affairs is what has happened in Kosovo in the past few years. The Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic. He had Albanians in Kosovo sent out of the country or killed. This is called ethnic cleansing. As the Albanians were the odd one out they were hunted down and killed. This is another example of how three hundred years on we have evolved very little when it comes to looking at peoples differences. The events of The Crucible do not just have themes that relate to worldwide affairs, they also have a meaning for things happening in the local area. For instance when something is stolen from someone everyone jumps to conclusions and looks for the odd person out and then assumes its them. Then the person is under some much pressure and just cant take it any more and confess. This is true in the Crucible when John goes to Danforth and tells him why Abagail is calling Witchcraft on his wife. He tells the court that he and Abagail had an affair saying, I have known her. Unfortunately Johns wife lies thinking she is protecting John by saying this is not true when asked by Danforth To your Knowledge, has John Proctor ever committed the crime of Lechery? Answer my question! Is your husband a lecher? To which Elizabeth Proctor replies No sir. Then after Mary turns on him and under the pressure he says he says, God is dead which for a puritan society is admitting to witchcraft. The play is so well known that quotes from it are used in TV shows. For instance when there is a witch-hunt for a leek in The West Wing one of the interviewees says (jokingly) I saw Elizabeth Proctor with the devil. So even though The Crucible is about 50 years old quotes are still used from it. It is quite easy to see why the play is in production every week somewhere in the world. Even though Arthur Miller has set the play more than 300 years ago the themes are still relevant today, as I have shown. Even in our supposedly civilised society when someone2 commits a crime we jump through hoops trying to pin the blame on someone else and we are not to picky on who. This I have demonstrated in talking about recent events in America. So are we really all that civilised when we still look for the odd one out and put the blame on them like we did three hundred years ago?

British Imperialists' Motives in Scramble for Africa Essay

British Imperialists' Motives in Scramble for Africa - Essay Example Nevertheless, imperialism is a many-faceted phenomenon; which had political, economic and social roots. Indeed, Socialist and Marxist critics narrowed its definition down and applied the term to a certain stage of capitalist societies when discussing social and and economic conditions (p.2).Thus, any attempt to give an account on the British imperialism must highlight the underlying political, social and economic motives. As Robinson and Gallagher (1961, pp. 19) stated â€Å"a first task in analysing the late-Victorians’ share in the partition [of Africa] is to understand the motives of the ministers who directed it, and the study of official thinking is indispensable to this†. The aim of this paper is to scrutinize British Imperialists' motives in scramble for Africa in three respects: political, economic and social. The Scramble for Africa begun in the last quarter of the 18th century and lasted until the WWI. While the decline of the Ottoman influence created a power vacuum in the region, the colonial powers of Europe, following the lead of the British imperialists, have begun to fill that void. In Africa and The Victorians, Robinson and Gallagher examined the relationship between the partition of Africa and British decision-making process. According to them, the Victorians' political relations with Africa changed radically after 1882. Lord Salisbury stated that: â€Å"I do not exactly know the cause of this sudden revolution. But there it is† (Quoted by Robinson and Gallagher, 1961, pp. 17). Late-Victorians were more eager to dominate Africa than their predecessors and the British forces invaded Egypt in 1882. The collapse of weak African governments may also have played role in the partition. In fact, British divide and rule policy was also an important factor in the national unrest and disorder in Africa. However, Robinson and Gallagher focused on the British policy-making as the underlying political factor. In fact, according to them , as also indicated by Schumpeter, â€Å"The possibility of official thinking in itself was a cause of late-Victorian imperialism† (pp. 21). Indeed, England had a long tradition of imperial rule and the that policy tradition inherited from Pitt and Channing to Palmerston and Clarendon (p.22). They also highlight ed (pp.22-23) policy makers' ignorance of Africa, as the partition was made â€Å"at house parties† without any public interest or participation. In fact, the interests, and thus motives, of policy makers were different in each country. In Egypt, it was due to the collapse of the Kedive regime. In east and west Africa, British interests were related to the Egyptian occupation. In Southern Africa, â€Å"imeperial intervention against the Transvaal was designed above all to uphold and restore the imperial influence which economic growth, Africaner nationalism and the Jameson fiasco had overthrown† (pp. 463). In Rhodesias and Nyasaland, the motives were mer ged with imperial aims in Cape colonial expansion and balance the rise of the Transvaal (pp. 463). However, Robinson and Gallagher stressed that commercial or financial concerns were rather inconsequential in ministers' decision on which territories should be occupied (pp. 463). For Robinson and Gallagher, ministers' private calculations played the most important part in decision-making process and again for different reasons. However, the security concerns seem to have prevailed. In Rhodesia, it was the safety of the routes to the East, in Southern Africa it was the preservation of the colonial rule, while the safety of the routes to India was the prominent imperative (pp. 464). In fact, Robinson and Gallagher (1961, pp. 464) noted that â€Å"