Dear colleague,
This is my penultimate blog article of the 23-24 school year, a fact I am delighted to report to you as I'm ready for some time away for reflection and recentering. On Thursday, I'll share with you a (very lengthy) end-of-year reflection that unpacks what I've learned in my classroom (including an analysis of three experiments I ran this year) and in my work as a writer-creative.
But today, I want to share with you a solid listening opportunity: my one-hour talk on how student motivation works. In the video below, I was rehearsing for a keynote address that I gave to one of the largest A Best Practices Conferences in my region of the USA.
But whether you teach AP classes or not, I think you'll find a lot of clarity and reflective application in the talk. Yes, I frame my remarks for AP teachers specifically. But what I basically argue throughout the talk is that just because a student “does work” doesn't mean they are well motivated.
In short, I do what I've been doing for the past several years, through things like my book and this blog. That is, I argue that student motivation is a matter of Five Key Beliefs and that these beliefs are heavily influenced by the things we do and don't do as teachers.
There are few easy answers in this area of our work, but there are promising, practical things we can do about the student motivation troubles we'll face next year.
So consider playing this video during your commute or your workout or your prep hour this week. Jot down a few notes. And, as always, ask me any questions. I'm as eager to get to the bottom of this topic as you are.
Teaching right beside you (for a few more days!),
DSJR
lmcgovernd292aebc85 says
Dave – I was practically jumping out of my seat reading this blog entry! I am a seasoned AP Lit teacher, and this Spring facilitated a PLC on The Will to Learn. This post is the perfect combination of both. Thank you!
One question I had for you is how you can possibly leave feedback on essays in the time frame you alotted – 6 hours, I believe? I generally have about 65 AP students (and others), and plan for about 8 minutes per essay when I am giving wholistic feedback. When you do the math, that is a lot of hours. I have tried all kinds of strategies to reduce the time to get feedback to students, but have had limited success. I would love more specifics regarding how you actually accomplish grading in that short a time frame.
Thanks for all the work you do! My colleagues and I have been inspired and encouraged!
davestuartjr says
LMC, thank you for your encouragement and for your question. I teach AP World History, and because those rubrics are single-item rubrics (for context on these, see: https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/single-point-rubric/), it takes significantly less time to use them (I have 60 AP students, and the most complex rubrics take 3-4 minutes to grade, hence the 3-4 hour timeframe I use in the video).
I do regret that in the video I don’t elaborate on the other methods for providing faster feedback that I unpack in the Writing chapter of my book These 6 Things.