Return-Path: <nifl-4eff@literacy.nifl.gov> Received: from literacy (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by literacy.nifl.gov (8.10.2/8.10.2) with SMTP id hBKHeLm29819; Sat, 20 Dec 2003 12:40:21 -0500 (EST) Date: Sat, 20 Dec 2003 12:40:21 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <74.3685db83.2d15e24a@aol.com> Errors-To: listowner@literacy.nifl.gov Reply-To: nifl-4eff@literacy.nifl.gov Originator: nifl-4eff@literacy.nifl.gov Sender: nifl-4eff@literacy.nifl.gov Precedence: bulk From: MWPotts2001@aol.com To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-4eff@literacy.nifl.gov> Subject: [NIFL-4EFF:2630] motivation to learn X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Mailer: AOL 5.0 for Mac sub 39 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Status: O Content-Length: 2892 Lines: 57 Colleagues, Again, I find that excerpts from PEN Weekly Newsblast (December 20, 2003) are closely connected to our work with EFF. You will see in the excerpt below the references to motivation to learn, alienation, and disengagement, factors that lead students to the high school exit ramp. Then, these students come to us, months or years later. What do we have to offer them that differs from their previous experience? Perhaps it is recognition of the Four Purposes for learning, identified early in the EFF research process. It may be that the impersonal places the students encountered in high school have become very personal spaces, where student goals receive attention via the Role Maps and the Teaching/Learning Cycle. It may be that EFF is making a stronger and more explicit link between assessment and instruction -- purposeful instruction, in which students know what is expected, instruction that will improve student learning and increase test scores. I keep hearing stories about motivated adult students, and I wonder . . . REPORT EXAMINES MOTIVATION AMONG STUDENTS A report unveiled by the National Research Council last week paints a grim picture of high schools unlikely to surprise teachers and students, but argues that those schools can learn from an array of promising changes taking root across the nation. Drawing on years of research in psychology, education, and sociology, "Engaging Schools: Fostering High School Students' Motivation to Learn" shows that by the time many students reach high school, they often lack any sense of purpose or real connection with what they are doing in the classroom, reports John Gehring. Although the best high schools are filled with well-qualified and caring teachers in a setting where all students are valued, the book-length report says, for too many teenagers, high school has become an impersonal place where low expectations are common. Teachers, administrators, policymakers, and the wider community are encouraged to think more creatively about how school settings and instruction can be tail ored to address that sense of alienation. The problem, the analysis says, is even more acute in large urban schools, where many students come from low-income families. "When students from advantaged backgrounds become disengaged, they may learn less than they could, but they usually get by or they get second chances; most eventually graduate and move on to other opportunities," the report's executive summary says. "In contrast, when students from disadvantaged backgrounds in high-poverty, urban high schools become disengaged, they are less likely to graduate and consequently face severely limited opportunities." http://www.edweek.org/ew/ewstory.cfm?slug=15HighSchool.h23 All the Best, Meta Potts, Moderator 4-EFF List FOCUS on Literacy Glen Allen, VA mwpotts2001@aol.com
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