Outside the comfort zone Getting comfortable with challenging your students

Geoff Hardy-GouldDirector of Education, OISE

Aims

1. I have considered my beliefs on challenging learners

2. I feel more comfortable with challenging learners3. I have some techniques to challenge learners and

to help learners challenge themselves4. I know what I need to do to make my lessons more

challenging

•Believing you can do it • 1. Approach difficult tasks as challenges to be mastered, not threats to be avoided

• 2. Set themselves challenging goals• 3. Heighten or sustain effort in face of failure• 4. Attribute failure to insufficient effort, or lack of knowledge and skills which are acquirable next time

•Sources of self-efficacy • Mastery experiences• Vicarious experiences• Social persuasion

• Danger of undermining• Structuring situations• Reducing stress reactions

• How teachers mediate challenge

• Fostering an internal need:• to respond to challenges• to seek out new challenges

• Appropriacy of challenge• Fostering a sense of always wanting to go one step further

• Setting your own challenging goals

Learner Needs Matrix

Apathy

AUTONOMY

I want to contribute

AGENCY

Alienation

AFFILIATION

Acquiescence

Anxiety Anger

Restricted autonomy

Crushed autonomy

Distorted autonomy

Acquiescent

autonomy

Antagonistic

autonomy

Motivating Every Learner: Alan McLean, Sage 2009

Learning stances and reactions

Agency

Alienation

Affiliation

Mutedly engaging

Hiding

Alarming/draining

Threatening

Exasperating Energetically

engaging

Harmoniously engaging

Autonomy

Apathy

Anger

Anxiety

Acquiescence

Opposing

Quietly engaging

Motivating Every Learner: Alan McLean, Sage 2009

How teachers motivate their pupils

AUTONOMY

AGENCY

AFFILIATION Engagement (care)

Stimulation (enjoy)

Structure (trust)

Feedback (believe)

Motivating Every Learner: Alan McLean, Sage 2009

Teaching styles

Protecting

Crushing

Valuing

Blocking Encouraging

Provoking

Trashing

Allowing

Crushing

ColludingPushingPestering

Coercing

AttuningSoothing

Motivating Every Learner: Alan McLean, Sage 2009

• Levers for the challenging teacher

• Context and classroom culture• Quantity of work in time available• Difficulty of task (language, desired outcome)• Assistance given• Environmental adjustment (affect)• Feedback (close monitoring; coaching)

• Conclusion

• Ts can shy away from challenging sts• Be the “challenging” teacher who fosters successful habits of mind

• Use differentiation techniques • Show care, enjoyment, trust and belief in learners

• Build agency via coaching and mediation

• geoff.hardy-gould@oise.com• References• Psychology for language teachers, Williams and

Burden (CUP) 1997• Self-Efficacy, Albert Bandura 1994 (in VS

Ramachaudran (Ed) Encyclopedia of human behaviour vol 4 New York: Academic Press)

• Motivating Every Learner Alan McLean, Sage 2009• Art Costa, Habits of mind across the curriculum 2009