I watched a Webinar on Larry Ferlazzo book called " How to motivate your students". Steven Hargadon interviewed Larry on writing his book. This webinar was recored on June 14, 2011. I was not able to ask any questions, but I did enjoy this first experience of listening to this recording.
Larry speaks of the importance of helping students develop their social/emotional learning skills. He decided to write this book because of some of the issues he had in his teaching career. He feels that by having these skills, students can have a greater success in their own academic achievement.
He starts the school year out with having the students interview their parents and learn about how their parents experience in school. The students learn that their own parents may have struggled in some of their classes, or maybe did not make athletic teams ect. This helps kids to see how their parents overcame some of their problems.
In class he brainstorms with students on how to see a problem as an opportunity. He feels that the teachers relationship with the students is the key to the success of motivating them. The students need to feel that they are in a classroom that is supporting them, they need to feel "comfortable" with the teacher.
He also reminds us that not all students will develop these skills at the same point in their academic career. For some students it takes longer for them to develop personal responsibility. He also reminds us to respond to students with statements like " Wow... you worked so hard on that". These types of statements validate the work students put into their projects.
All and all it was a good experience. I look forward to listening to other webinars.
I Love Larry Ferlazzo's blog, so I assume this webinar was just as wonderful! Do you have the link to the webinar for us to listen to at some point if we have time? Just post it in a comment if you like! Was there anything you might use in your classroom or future teaching?
ReplyDeleteInvolving parents in the learning process, even for sort of classroom management things like teaching good study habits or self-motivational skills, always seems like a great idea. If teachers can make that connection between school and home, their students have such a greater chance at making positive progress academically.
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