Standard+5

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** Standard 5 ** ** Teachers know how to manage a classroom. **  The teacher uses an understanding of individual and group motivation and behavior to create a learning environment that encourages positive social interaction, active engagement in learning, and self-motivation.

Evidence: Project Research: Using a Wiki to Increase Writing Motivation and Quality Rationale: This winter I complete a research project with my 5th grade students. This research examined the effect that publishing writing to a class wiki had on student motivation as well as writing quality. The use of a wiki was a way for students to authentically publish their writing so that their peers were their audience. After publishing their work to the class wiki, students were encouraged to read their classmates’ work as well as give positive feedback though the comment feature on the wiki. This format helped create a writing atmosphere that was both positive and authentic. What I concluded from the study is that students appeared to be more motivated to start writing and stayed engaged and on task, knowing that their work was going to be read by their classmates. What I learned is that a majority of the students were excited to share their work and that they were more motivated to complete the activity knowing that more than just their teacher was going to be commenting on their work. I also found, that constructive positive feedback is a skill that needs to be modeled and instructed by the teacher, so that students reply with more than just a “great job”.

KSD

5.K.5 The teacher recognizes factors and situations that are likely to promote or diminish intrinsic motivation, and knows how to help students become self motivated.

By creating an authentic audience for student work, student motivation increased to get started and stay on task.

5.S.5 The teacher helps the group develop shared values and expectations for student interactions, academic discussions, and individual and group responsibility that create a positive classroom climate of openness, mutual respect, support, and inquiry.

After students posted their published writing, their peers had a chance to both read and comment on their writing pieces. The role I played as a teacher was to demonstrate and model positive constructive feedback and gave examples of unacceptable responses as well, all in effort to create a positive learning environment.

5.D.3 The teacher values the role of students in promoting each other’s learning and recognizes the importance of peer relationships in establishing a climate for learning.

This project allowed me to witness the motivation the peers create in the learning environment. Having their peers as an audience kept students on task, engaged, and helped students publish quality work.