Laying the Foundations
One teacher's journey
This week, as Victoria entered into its fourth COVID lockdown, my mind turned to motivation. My motivation waxed and waned. Yet I still had a job to do, and while I was still passionate about providing learning experiences for my students, it’s just that bit harder to find the motivation when I’m staring at screens rather than the (usually) smiling faces of five- and six-year-olds. Fortunately, my intrinsic motivation of wanting my students to succeed is supported by the extrinsic motivation of getting paid to do my job! So, what’s it like for our students? Surely, their motivation comes and goes in a day at school. For some activities, most students will be intrinsically motivated. Other activities might be a bit of a struggle to keep them engaged. Of course, we would love each child to intrinsically motivated for every moment of every day. But let’s face it, in a group of twenty, not everyone is going to be intrinsically motivated all the time. We could fall into the trap of trying to make every lesson more exciting than the one before it. But this is a dangerous spiral to enter: one that can ultimately lead to blaming the teacher for not making learning interesting, engaging, or fun enough. Today I want to share a game that I play with my class. This game helps to increase students’ engagement and motivation. This game helps to ensure all students are focused on learning, and we all want our students to be spending time engaged in learning. Welcome to the Students vs Teacher GameI was introduced to the Students vs Teacher Game (sometimes called ‘Beat the Teacher’) when I was first trained in Direct Instruction programmes by NIFDI. The Students vs Teacher Game is a vehicle to increase student motivation. It enhances learning because it minimises off-task behaviour and distractions. Students feel successful and positive behaviour is reinforced. The rules of the game
There are a few things that the teacher needs to do to make sure the Students vs Teacher Game is successful:
I’ve used the Students vs Teacher Game for Literacy and Maths. This year I am using it to support our Phonemic Awareness programme. When I started to use it, it took me a while to get it to flow (maybe a term of using it daily), but now it’s second nature and the amount of instructional time it saves is phenomenal. I’ve used it with students aged 5-14 years. And while the way I ‘sell it’ might change, it is still very effective. I care about every one of my students too much to leave their motivation up to chance. The Students vs Teacher game helps me ensure that every child in my class is engaged in learning. Further reading:You can find out more about NIFDI (the National Institute for Direct Instruction) at https://www.nifdi.org
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I'm JamesI am a father of two (8 & 5), married to a future Early Childhood Educator. Archives
September 2023
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