Treating each student like a 'winner' maximizes growth
The longer I teach the more I am inclined to emphasize each students' strengths, and ferreting out their individual learning styles, versus dwelling on their weaknesses. I am finding that because of this the 'Pygmalion Effect' is maximized. Students who came into my design or sketching classes doing poor work are beginning to do some very good or acceptable work due to encouragement and praise. I would rather be remembered as the instructor who spent serious time with each of them one-on-one and helped them get over their sometimes self-inflicted hurdles than the instructor who made the classes so impossible and unnavigable for them that either stopped attending, were frequentely absent or failed due to lack of improvement.
Bravo Ferdinand!
Caring instrcutors are the first step in helping students believe in themselves.
GREAT job!
Jane Davis
ED107 Facilitator
Anne, I could not agree more than what you said. The Pygmalion Effect is very true in real world. I have seen the siginificant impact of this on the lives of many of my students. The stories they told me about how they are percieved by their family members and friends. Some are positive stories but unfortunately, many are negative. I have always struggled to correct this and let them overcome the wrong perceptions they have. I always tell them to believe in themselves.
I have always felt that it is better to praise students than to make them feel like they are not good enough. Like ourselves, students respond better to positive reinforcement than negative. The more positive an instructor is the greater the chance of success.
Only tangentially related, but a funny anecdote about this old saying...
I had a student who was being rather combative with two of her classmates one session. One of the classmates said "You know, you catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar." Without a pause, the combative student snapped back, "Why I wanna catch any damn flies?"
Not much you can say to that, really.
The pygmalion effect of how one feels (being treated) as far as affecting perfomance has often removed traditional barriers to learning and the use and interaction of tools by students to reinforce memory.
User guides, referenc manuals, learners guide are great. The student needs to be made to feel there use is important to them personnally. I can write beautiful docs for students but if there is no expectation of usefullness by students, no expectation and motivation by students to use said docs, I am deluding myself into thinking I am doing a good job.
Instructors should be emotive of how and why students will and can be successfull to make a studetn feel that they are going to be successful. The instructor should demonstrate the use of memory improvement tools as a modeling behavior done in a manner that is observed by students not taught as a technical point of knowledge.
Hi Sonny!
I find that it isn't only the students who come from challenged backgrouds who have low self-esteem but those students who have very solid middle to upper class families. I try to reenforce positive behavior at the point in time when it happens - and - often all it is a simple smiley face sticker or drawn on their paper.
Everybody in my class is a winner and I try to role model and demonstrate winning behaviors. Lack of self-esteem is a learned behavior so we have to retrain. So bring it back to basics keeping in mind that change can be slow to come and that the student themselves have to be part of the solution.
I hope this helps. Keep up the good work!
Jane Davis
ED107 Facilitator
I find many of my students with many baggages with low self esteem issues stemming from environments they are raised in. The self-fulfilling prophecy of, "I am not good enough" always existed with many students I face today. We have to maintain this "Winner" mentality to our students so that they feel you believe in them.
Hi Karyn!
Great job! It sounds like you are interested in the success of your students. there is nothing better that making people feel like they are important and valuable.
I have gone to the Dollar Store and purchased pendants which have encouaging statements on them and given them to my students. After they move on through their programs, they will come back to me and tell me how something so simple helped them be successful. I use smiley faces as well! This all sounds very elementary, but students really appreciate.
Keep up the good work!
Jane Davis
ED107 Facilitator
I believe all my students can do anything with hard work in mind. There are those who will read assignments, review before class, eat something before they come to sit in my book class vs their lab class, and show up in full uniform. When there are the ones who fidget through class, come late or aren't in full uniform we have a quick discussion about the importance of representing the school postitvely and for them i try to find the key that excites them on a particular topic.
Just like he old saying "you can catch more flies with honey then with vinegar " if you make the students welcome and encourage them every step of the way they will be successfull . When you are confident you take control and roll with it and that makes growth .
Good thoughts. Positive thinking and setting students up for success always works. We recently ran a pilot course with a control population who had already completed a similar course and a population who had little or no idea of the course content. Both groups were encouraged to participate and buy in was acheived. Test scores fell between 83% (low) and 100%. Amazingly the spread was very similar between the two populations. The low scorer was actually identified by instructors and peers in the initial survey and he managed to live up to this theory by being the lowest performer in the class. By the way, he was a member of the control population and is now one of the most active in the alumnae site.
I find that I have to be very tentative when I correct a weakness or suggest that students attend class and bring their work. Students are more 'thin-skinned' than their predecessors were. This is easier to do when I don't view student shortcomings as a defect in myself. Just be patient and reinforce the positives and they will expand their skills in the area. Negativity shuts them down.
