by Karen Boyes
All it takes is really believing. Teachers can create better student results by just believing in them. This is even truer with underachievers.
If a teacher is told that her students are bright, the teacher will be more supportive, teach more difficult material, allow more time to answer questions and provide more thoughtful and useful feedback to the students. In turn, the students receiving this attention will perform to this level. They actually score higher on educational tests, even if they are not ‘bright’, simply because the teacher believes in them. This also applies in reverse. If a teacher believes his students are under-achievers, he will be much less articulate, less likely to try to understand the students point of view and expect a poorer quality of work and standards. Again students in this environment will meet the lower expectations.
This uniquely human phenomenon is the Pygmalion Effect. It is a persistently held belief in another person and such a belief becomes a reality. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Your first impressions are lasting impressions. Have a go at this exercise from Tauber, 1997. Write down the descriptive statements that come to mind when you read the about the following six people who will be in your class next year...
* a teenage girl from a family that has strong religious views;
* a significantly overweight year five girl;
* a year one student from an affluent family who is any only child;
* a intermediate student whose two older siblings you had in your class several years ago, each of whom were troublemakers;
* an Asian boy who is the son of a respected university math professor;
* a teenage boy who is thin, almost frail, and very uncoordinated for his age.
In spite of your best efforts to resist predictions regarding these students and their academic and/or behavioural future, did you catch yourself forming expectations – even fleetingly? If your answer is yes, then the self-fulfilling prophecy is probably set in motion.
Once a belief is set in motion and a student is labelled ‘troublemaker,’ or ‘non-academic’ the chances are increased that your treatment of this student will, in effect act out the self-fulfilling prophecy. Of course, you could label a student as ‘cooperative,’ ‘a scholar,’ or a ‘self starter’ and increase the chances that your treatment of him will convey these expectations and, in turn, contribute to the student living up to this expectation.
Here is another example. If a student in your class scores significantly better on a test, than you would have predicted, would look first at alternative reasons before admitting you had pre-judged this student’s ability? Would you be tempted to re mark the test or think about who was sitting close to that student during the test and compare answers for signs of cheating?
As author W Wagner claims “The ultimate function of a prophecy is not to tell the future, but to make it.” Then every time a teacher sizes up or down a student they are influencing the student’s future behaviour and achievement.
**Decile 1 vs decile 10**
If you teach in a lower decile school I have a question for you. Please think seriously about your answer. Would you teach the same way you do now – if you worked in a decile 10 school? Would you put more or less effort into your planning? Would you expect more or less from the students? Would you give more specific criteria? If you honestly answered you would change the way you teach – then why not start now and teach your students like they will be the movers and shakers of the world. Expect high results and you might just get them.
Every child has an individual brain topography. The way they learn is as individual as each fingerprint. There is no dumb and smart. Just different ways of learning. Are you catering for these within your classroom?
At the Centre For Research On Education, Diversity and Excellence, researchers have found a clear link between students’ achievement and the instructional conversation. Their findings show highly effective teachers ensure students talk more than the teacher, they guide conversation to include students views, judgements, and rationales using text evidence and other substantive support and these teachers assist student’s learning by questioning, restating, praising and encouraging.
Check your personal use of language. Do you use the language of ‘thinking’ or dumb down your language so as not to overwhelm your students?
Here are some examples from Art Costa’s work. Notice the difference in the two sentences:
“Let’s look at these two pictures”
“Let’s COMPARE these two pictures"
“What do you think will happen when...?”
“What do you PREDICT will happen when...?”
“Let’s work this problem”
“Let’s ANALYSE this problem”
“How do you know that’s true?”
“What EVIDENCE do you have to support that?”
Are you treating your students like the are intelligent or like they will not amount to much?
If you go through your current curriculum documents you’ll find words such as; analyse, apply, classify, compare, contrast, elaborate, predict, reason, verify, summarise and simplify. Using these words with your students on a daily basis will increase their ability to think and problem solve.
Reflect on your own assumptions and labels you have given students within your classroom. Your expectations can and will affect the outcomes of your students.
**References:**
Boyes K. Creating An Effective Learning Environment
Tauber R. Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
Rosenthal R. Pygmalion In The Classroom
Wagner W. The City Of Man
**Check out our website at [http://www.spectrumeducation.com www.spectrumeducation.com] and shop online for books and educational resources. **
No comments:
Post a Comment