Motivating Students: Are Teachers and Students on the Same Page?

I just finished reading a thought-provoking article in the February issue of Educational Leadership titled “Start Where Your Students Are,” by Robyn R. Jackson. She posits that to get all students to learn, teachers need to understand their “currency.” She defines currency as “any behavior that students use to acquire the knowledge and skills important to your class.” She gives examples such as students who want approval from the teacher tend to follow the classroom routines and rules; students who value peer approval will work hard when they are “pushed” by their peers.

Jackson, who authored the recent ASCD (formerly the Association of Supervision and Curriculum Development) book “Never Work Harder Than Your Students,” then asks an important question: What happens when the currencies a teacher values conflict with the currencies valued by some of her/his students?

What a powerful question. On my daily walk downstairs to get a soda, I pondered that question and thought about how that conflict might manifest itself in the classroom. So many current teachers were taught by teachers who primarily lectured. Those teachers – at least those who have been out of school for more than 20 years – went to a library and used a card catalog. They sat silently at tables, poring through reference books and jotting information on paper. Some, but not all, value a quiet classroom, where they are teaching and students are taking notes. They worry that moving desks into small groupings rather than straight rows and giving students the opportunity to work together in teams may cause the teachers to lose control.

But the world has changed. Students need so much more than lectures and worksheets to be successful in post-secondary education and the 21st century workplace. I think about Tony Wagner’s 7 Survival Skills for Teens Today:

  1. Critical Thinking and Problem-Solving;
  2. Collaboration across Networks and Leading by Influence;
  3. Agility and Adaptability;
  4. Initiative and Entrepreneurialism;
  5. Effective Oral and Written Communication;
  6. Accessing and Analyzing Information; and
  7. Curiosity and Imagination.

Aren’t those the “currencies” we ought to value and seek to use in the classroom?

When I think back to the visit I made to Winterboro School in late January, I saw these types of student currency in action. Students were working together. They could tell me not only what they were learning but WHY they were learning it. — a teaching strategy that’s strongly advocated in another one of my favorite books: “Instructional Rounds in Education: A Network Approach to Teaching and Learning” by Elizabeth City, Richard Elmore, Sarah Fiarman, and Lee Teitel.

The authors suggest that when observing a classroom, the observer focus on three questions (p. 88):

  • “What are the teachers doing and saying?”
  • “What are students doing and saying?”
  • “What is the task?”

They also recommend that when observing a classroom, one should talk to the students (unless, of course, the teacher is lecturing or directly instructing them).

While I was focused on those three questions during my visit, I wish I had remembered to ask a few more important questions recommended by the “Instructional Rounds” authors: “What will you do if you don’t know the answer or if you’re stuck? How will you know when you’re finished? How will you know if what you’ve done is good quality?”

Those questions seem to get back to the types of currency all teachers should be striving for. So… what did you learn from this blog post? What do you wonder about?

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