Application
of Component Motivation To Improve Students’ Motivation
This
research is done as an action to improve students’ motivation in technology
class. Subject of the research is 10-1 technology class that consist of 23
students. The topic of discussion is Database. The following is the process of action research has done in the class:
1. Problem
Identification
2. Problem
analysis
3. Hypothesis
4. Planning
for the action
5. Application
of the action
6. Process
the data
7. Write
the report
1.
Problem
Identification
30
July 2012
After 2 weeks teaching 10-1, I found out
that this class has problems that need to be solved immediately. The problems observed in two weeks teaching
10-1 technology are as follows: many students come late to the class (Ad,
Ar, ir, fr, Kv, Mh, Is, Rgn and sls), many students
did not pay attention during the lecture (cd, irsyad, fr, Kv, Mh,
Hlm, Is, Rg and Ss) and very few students participated in the
discussion of the topic.
1
August 2012
Another
problem that I have found out as a big issue in this class is many students did
not really do the exercises (cd, ir, fr, Kv, Mh, Is,
Rgn and Ss). Many students copied
the formula on how to solve the exercises instead of trying to find out by
him/her self through the internet or other resources. There are very little
number of students asking questions related to the topic. This situation makes me hard to
know if the students really understand the topic I delivered.
2.
Problem
analysis
Self
reflection - 7 August 2012
In the class, I thought I had done my
work well as I have shown enthusiasm about the topic when I was teaching the
students, I have involved the students in the learning process by giving them
chances to ask questions during the learning process and if there is no one
asked question I questioned their understanding about the topic I delivered. However, after doing the reflection, I found
out that I was too much lecturing (talking), My explanation was too fast, I was
too serious and stiff in facilitating the learning process, and the students might not
be able to see the purpose of learning the skills in their daily life as I did
not discuss the relation of the skills they learnt to their daily life. Another
mistake that I found out is I asked the students to investigate on how to solve
the exercises without giving them enough examples prior to the exercises.
29 August 2012
Today is the last day for the student to
work on their investigation task. in fact, I will not meet them tomorrow and the following day after tomorrow is the submission date.
However, many students have not finished 80-90% of their task. Is, Ad, Rgn,
Ss, Ar, Fr and Hl have not yet finished 50% of their work while
Cd, Kevin, Mh and Ir only finished up to the research questions.
07 September 2012
Now, it’s getting obvious that this
class needs an action to take as many students submit their task late. The due date of the first task was on
31 August 2012. The following are the evidence that this class really needs
help : Rgn submitted on 3rd September, Ss submitted on 4th
September, Ir submitted on 4 September, Cd, Kv and Mh have not
submitted up to 5th September 2012. Parents had been informed
regarding the late submission but even after the parents had been informed, it
does not reduce the number of students submitting task late in the second stage
which is the design stage. So, there were about 11 students submitted their task
late in the first two stages of the task. Based on this fact, I have to take an
action to at least reduce the problem.
Research questions –
What might be a better way to improve
students’ motivation? (How do I do my teaching practice to improve students’
motivation?)
09 September 2012 – Theoretical
Basis
Motivation
According to Mitchell(1982)
motivation is concerned with action and the internal and the external forces
that influence one’s choice of action. According to Merriam-Webster(1997)
motivation is the act or process of motivating; the condition of being
motivating; a motivating force, stimulus, or influence; incentive; drive;
something (such as a need or desire) that causes a person or student to act.
G.R. Terry in (Malayu Hasibuan ; 2007:105) gives similar definition by defining
motivation as a need that causes someone to act. Not much different from Park and Mittal (1985)
in (Maclnnis and friends,1991) that define motivation as goal-directed arousal.
Therefore, can be concluded that motivation is a need that makes student
willing to act.
Motivation is an
essential element in learning process as it will impact the quality education. According
to Shabait(2010) motivation is of paramount importance to student success.
According to Palmer(2007)
in Williams() there are five key ingredients impacting student motivation :
student, teacher, content, method/process, and environment. Student motivation
is enhanced when these factors pertinent to students are present:
·
Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.
Intrinsic motivational factor found to be at work with most students include
involvement, curiosity, challenge, and social interaction. Extrinsic
motivational factors include compliance, recognition, competition and work
avoidance.
·
Various individual and social factors:
overall academic motivation is affected by various individual and social
factors. For example, intrinsic motivation is affected by the reason for
preferring the school, the probability of finding a job after graduation, the
future expectation, etc.
Teacher
contributions to student motivation:
·
Subject knowledge and motivational
level: The professor’s knowledge of the subject matter and the motivational
level of the professor are most important to motivate college students to do
well in college.
·
Teacher skills: one important extrinsic
factor in the educational environment is the instructor. Teacher skills include
staying calm, eliminating negative thoughts or feelings, disengaging stress,
remembering that students have their own realities and are doing their best,
not taking students’ actions personally, remembering that students are not bad
rather just in the process of development, and maintaining a sense of humor.
·
Teacher qualifications: Qualifications
of the teacher employed in universities should be questioned and improved. Educators
need to acquire new qualities and continue to grow and evolve as they are role
models for the students.
·
Know your students and build on their
strengths: Use the strengths that students bring to the classroom. For example,
the learner-centered classroom is effective with group of students like group
activities.
content
also should be relevant and useful to the student in his or her life. That is,
content needs to be developed and improved with awareness of the factors listed
below:
•
Students experience success and achievement: Ensuring that students experience success
is an extremely important strategy for motivation. Success creates self confidence
which in turn makes students more inclined to engage in learning. This requires
that tasks be moderate and have an achievable level of difficulty. The goal is
to have student experience success in their understanding. Some techniques for ensuring
this success include: state the goal for the lesson; provide simple and clear explanations;
ask the students to express their comments, questions, and ideas; question the
students; provide hand-on activities as often as possible; and assessment tasks
should be flexible.
•
Student ownership: Students feel some ownership of a decision if they agree to
it. Whenever possible, students should be allowed to determine class rules and procedures,
set learning goals, select learning activities and assignments, and decide whether
to work in groups or independently.
· Timely
and relevant to real life: Making the content relevant to real life can
increase student’s motivation. As such, teachers should emphasize the links
between real life and school subjects, design assignments, and experiments that
use everyday
the
method/process contributions to student motivation are:
·
Incentives: Educators could experiment
with monetary incentives but budgets usually do not allow this possibility.
Another option is to help the student get a scholarship/job/work study or
participate in a sponsored competition featuring financial awards.
·
Encouragement and praise: Positive
verbal statements of encouragement and praise can strongly influence student
motivation. Praise for effort and for improvement can build a student’s
self-confidence. Esteem can be boosted by emphasizing his or her performance
relative to personal goals. (Palmer, 2007) It is important that the student
feel seen and “gotten.”
·
Positive social interactions: When
students have positive social interactions with their peers or teacher, they
will become more engaged in learning. Social interaction can occur when
students work in groups, have group discussions, group projects, and group
presentations.
Environment is the fifth key ingredient
of student motivation. Suggestion for creating environment conducive to student
motivation are as follows:
·
Create an effective environment.
Examples coming before and after detailed discussions of the concepts, the use
of engaging classroom activities, the use of real-life exercises throughout
that are varied in scope and field of application, motivating by example.
·
Engagement and considering student and
teacher opinions: The learning environment should take into consideration the
intrinsic and extrinsic student motivations and the opinions of students and
teachers in arranging the environment. Materials, tools, and equipment that are
needed in the educational process should be determined, obtained, and
modernized so that active learning is promoted.
·
Teamwork: An environment of teamwork can
contribute to learning. All teams need four competencies: generate and refine
ideas, organize and integrate work, sustain group spirit, and manage
boundaries. “Smart teams” are built by having the entire team look at what
competencies are needed to be effective. For example, generational work/life
balance, and technology.
·
Emotionally literate environment: The
more comfortable individuals feel in themselves and with others, the easier it
is to concentrate and achieve. Creating an emotionally literate environment
includes equipping students with essential life skills and learning behaviors
including self-awareness, empathy, managing feelings, motivation, and social
skills. These skills can be taught and modeled.
According to
Kumar(2007) The most
important aspect of classroom climate is the relationship between teacher and
students. There must be elements of caring, trust and respect in the
interpersonal relationships between teachers and students. An effective
classroom climate is one in which the teachers' authority to organize and
manage the learning activities is accepted by the students, there is mutual
respect and good rapport, and the atmosphere is one of purposefulness and
confidence in learning. A key consideration is the extent to which the teacher
is able to foster favorable perceptions towards learning among students, by
establishing in students self-respect and self-esteem regarding themselves as
learners. Kumar also mentioned that the students must feel that the teacher is
interested in them as individuals as well as students. Hence it is better to
address students by names as often as possible. Another important component of
classroom climate according to Kumar(2007) is the enthusiasm shown by the
teacher. Teachers who enjoy teaching and their subject, and teach with
enthusiasm are more likely to motivate their students.
Classroom climate is also affected by the type of leadership
exhibited by a teacher (authoritarian, democratic and laissez-faire)
Kumar(2007). In an autocratic classroom, the teacher decides on and attempts to
impose the goals of learning activities; the students do not participate in
either the selection of learning activities or the goals of these activities.
Hostile and aggressive behavior occurs more frequently under autocratic
leadership than under democratic leadership. Under autocratic leadership, the
students are often frustrated, and they resolve their frustration by aggressive
acts of one kind or another. It has been found that an aggressive, hostile,
punitive leader stimulates aggressive, punitive, and hostile behavior in
students. If the students cannot express their hostility to the teacher, they
may direct it toward impersonal objects or their companions. In a democratic
leadership, all policies are a matter of group discussion and decision,
encouraged and assisted by the leader. Democratic leadership produces more task
orientation and more socially acceptable behavior than does autocratic
leadership. In a laissez-faire leadership, complete freedom is given to the
group or individual decision, without any leader participation. Giving the
students, authority in the classroom can improve classroom climate and
encourage students to take responsibility for their environment.
According to Davis(1999) To encourage students to become
self-motivated independent learners, instructors can do the following:
- Give frequent, early, positive feedback that supports
students' beliefs that they can do well.
- Ensure opportunities for students' success by assigning
tasks that are neither too easy nor too difficult.
- Help students find personal meaning and value in the
material.
- Create an atmosphere that is open and positive.
- Help students feel that they are valued members of a
learning community.
Palmer(2007) in
William() mentioned that students are motivated when they pay attention, they
begin working on tasks immediately, they ask questions and volunteer answers,
they appear to be happy and eager. Callahan() mentioned two things about the
degree to which a student is motivated to engage in an academic task is jointly
determined by his/her expectancy for success and by the value that he/she has
attached to a specific task. This theory suggests that students can be
successful if they apply reasonable effort and appreciate the value of the
learning activities.
Indicators of motivation in this research
refer to indicator according to Palmer(2007) in William() as follows: Students
pay attention, students working on tasks immediately, students ask questions
and volunteer answers, students appear to be happy and eager.
1.
Hypothesis
To improve students’
motivation, hypothesis used in this research is “if I apply the component of
motivation, then students’ motivation will improve therefore the number of
students submit the task on time will also improve”
01 October 2012
2.
Planning
for the action
The
following are the strategies will be used to improve students’ motivation:
1. Student
: make the student to have desire to be involved and to have curiosity.
2. Teacher
: show enthusiasm, vary the teaching method, encourage the student, provide
constructive and timely feedback.
3. Content
: make the lesson relevant to real life
4. Method/process
: positive social interaction with their peers and the teacher.
5. Environment
: encourage the student to engage and to participate
Instrumentation
The following are the instruments used
to collect data from students:
1. An
observation sheet. This instrument will
be used to record data about student’s motivation during the technology
session. The instrument is designed by the researcher with the help of the
colleague from technology department. The following is the observation sheet
used in this research:
Table 1
Observation sheet
No
|
Component
|
Always
|
Frequently
|
Rarely
|
Never
|
1
|
How often do I feel excited
entering technology class?
|
||||
2
|
How often do I feel
interested to learn about technology?
|
||||
3
|
How often do I pay
attention in technology class?
|
||||
4
|
How often do I begin
working on task immediately?
|
||||
5
|
How often do I ask
questions?
|
||||
6
|
How often do I
volunteer to answer questions?
|
||||
7
|
How often do I
contribute to the class discussion?
|
1. The
design cycle report(s) will also be used as one of the instruments in this research as
to know how many students submit their report on time.
Apart from the above instruments,
lesson plan is also designed prior to the action research as well as teaching
tools are planned to make sure that the learning process is done properly.
Target of the research at the end of the
research are as follows:
1. Motivation
has improved to minimum 90 % shows by the result of the observation sheet.
2. There
are minimum 90 % of the students are able to submit the task on time.
5.
Application of the action research
a. Treatment as planned is done as an
action to improve student’s motivation. At this stage, subject teacher with the
help of level head applied all the strategies planned prior to the action
research.
b. Observation is done to record the
process as well as the impact of the strategies.
c. reflection
at this stage, the researcher figured out the result of the
learning process that is continued by discussing the finding with the
supervisor. The result from before and after strategies applied, then compared.
This activity is used to find out the implementation of component of motivation
to improve students’ motivation. The result from reflection and evaluation in the
first cycle is used as a plan for the second cycle and so on until the 4th
cycle is done.
This research is done
in 4 cycles. Each cycle consist of more than one session (min 3x80 minutes). In
each cycle, more than one component of motivation are applied as can be seen in
the following table.
Table 2 Strategy of Motivation and the topic
Strategy
|
Topic
|
Teacher vary the
teaching method, teacher show enthusiasm by expressing facial expressions,
putting energy into lesson preparation and using humor, giving examples
relevant to real life, positive social interaction by allowing the students
to work in group
|
Database
What
is database, hierarchy of database, data dictionary, primary key,
introduction to relational database.
|
Teacher
vary the teaching method (an audio, a video and exercises will be used in
this cycle), discussion, encouragement and praise.
|
MS.
Access
Table,
form, query and report
|
Teacher
vary the teaching method(students will present their report, a small group
discussion), include encouragement and praise and apply democratic leadership
in teaching (allowing the students to set up their own target each session).
This is done to avoid confrontation between the student and the teacher.
|
Investigate
Stage
|
Teacher
vary the teaching method (teacher will ask students initiative to get feedback for
their first design, teacher make use of student’s work as an example in the
lecturing of the design), include encouragement and praise and apply
democratic leadership in teaching (allowing the students to set up their own
target each session as long as they will make it to submit on the due date)
but this time I have to make sure that I supervise them closely to avoid
students do everything in the last minute, additional strategy to 5 students
is to give frequent, early, positive feedback that supports students' beliefs
that they can do well (teacher will approach the student and feedback their
work as often as possible). To make it easier, I arrange the five students
sitting near to my sitting.
|
Design
Stage
|
The strategies above
are applied in this research in four cycles. Each cycle consist of four stages:
planning, action, observation and reflection. The following is the detail of
the application of motivation component in every cycle:
Cycle
1:
3x80 minutes (08 October – 10 October)
Plan
Based on the first evaluation about
motivation, the following will be applied:
1.
Determine the strategies to improve
students’ motivation: Teacher vary the
teaching method, teacher show enthusiasm by expressing facial expressions,
putting energy into lesson preparation and using humor, giving examples
relevant to real life, positive social interaction by allowing the students to
work in group
2.
Determine the lesson objective:
At
the end of the lesson students should be able to define database, Identify
examples of database, explain the function of database, explain why is it important
to learn database, and explain the hierarchy database.
3.
Design the lesson plan and tests
The
lesson plan in brief :
Opening:
check the students’ readiness, communicate the lesson objective, benefit of the
topic and activity for 80 minutes
Main
:
Students
will “play” with pictures and 4 pieces of paper, they will find an information
from unorganized stack of paper. Work in group to “play” with directories book.
Work individually to “play” with search engine. Discuss the definition and
function of database as well as the hierarchy of database
Closing:
Teacher
will help the students summarize the lesson
4.
Prepare the teaching tools blank papers
(working paper), book directory and search engine
Action
The action is done by
applying the following: vary the teaching method, teacher design three
different activities to make the students learn about the theory of database,
teacher show enthusiasm by expressing facial expressions, body language,
putting energy into lesson preparation and using humor. Student will work in
pair to talk about how database will help him/her in his/her daily life. After
each activity, teacher helped the students to find out the meaning of the
activity (lesson learn from the activity). To Encourage the students, their
participation is recorded and displayed on the white board.
In this cycle, each
session of the lessons is begun by communicating the objective of the lesson as
well as the activity during the session. When it comes to the second meeting of
the lesson, the previous participation result is displayed in the beginning of
the session.
In the first meeting, Instead
of using traditional teaching method to deliver (lecturing) the theory, teacher
design three different activities to make the students learn about database. The
activity are as follows: teacher displayed three pictures (a man, books and a
dog). Each student is given four pieces of paper to record information about
each picture on different piece of paper. the last paper is used to write their
favorite information they wrote on the other three papers. Students make a
group (consist of five), then combine their three pieces of papers and shuffle
them. Each student took turn to find an information written on the fourth paper
from stack of papers, other students count how much time the student spend to
find a certain information. The second
activity is students work with directory books to find an information given by
the teacher then count how much time spend to find the information. The third
activity is to work with search engine. Every time an activity is done, the
teacher helped the students to make conclusion about lesson learn. I asked the
students (volunteer) to express their opinion regarding the activity. Some of
the students begin to understand the purpose of the activity. The sign nodding (understand)
showed by many students (Bryan, Yohannes, Viola, Regina, Natasha, Emilio and
Salsa). Danastry was able to make conclusion of the lesson nicely by conveying the
purpose of the database in her own words. The learning activity looks run
smoothly.
In the second meeting,
the same strategies are applied in the learning process. This time the students
are asked to investigate data type on a form on the Yahoo mail as if they are about
to sign up for a new account. Then, they are also asked to investigate data
type on a form of an e-commerce. Every time an activity is done, the teacher and
students discussed the data type based on students finding. Each participation
is recorded on the white board and combined with their previous participation
number. The students’ participation in the learning activity is increased
especially when the students know that their participation is recorded and
displayed on the white board. Students competed to get the most number of
participation.
Not much different from
the second activity, the same strategies are also applied in the learning
process during the third meeting for relational operator and type of database
topics. A quiz is given every end of the meeting to evaluate the students’
understanding regarding the topic of the day.
Reflection
Observation
Based on my observation
and discussion with my supervisor there are many interesting findings. Encouraging the students to participate and
engage in the learning process by displaying their name on the white board work
well. This can be seen from the number of students participated in asking
questions and answered questions during the learning process. However, it is
too tiring and too hard for the teacher to record each student’s participation
on the white board especially when most of the students participated. A sense of humor
seemed working with Is when I addressed how I felt when he did not pay
attention. “Is, suppose you are talking to your girl friend but your
beloved girl friend look at the other guy. How do you feel? I felt it just now.
I was talking to you and you did not even look at me . . . I felt neglected”.
The class was laughing for a while but after that every time I look at Is during the lecturing, he tried to show me that he was paying attention. I was
surprised seeing Kv asked me a question about “the purpose of database” as
it is his first time to ask a question related to the content. He showed happy
face when I praise him by saying : “ I am so happy to see you engage in the
lesson today”. However, there are still several students need help to engage
with the activity as they are more interested in sharing own conversation with
friends. Ar talked too much with Ad, it makes him not able to answer a question
about the record. Cd sometimes pay attention but very often silent (like has
something in his mind).
I spend too much time
in the first activity of first meeting as the class enjoyed the activity. It almost 20 minutes waste for the first
activity as the students curios (some compete with others) to know how much time they spent to find a certain
information from the stack of information. I have to rush in discussing the last part of
the lesson to make sure that the evaluation is done at the end of the class. Many
students did not engage in the lesson showed by low result in the test 1. The class
average is only 58%.
In the second meeting
of the theory, I can see that the students’ participation in the learning
activity is increased especially when the students know that their
participation is recorded and displayed on the white board. Students seem to
compete to get the most number of participation. Out of 23 students present
only 2 students seems just sitting in the class (Ir and Cd). Students
engagement in the class proved by the average of the test2 result increased
from 58% to 91%.
In the third meeting of
the theory many students still engage in the learning process. However,
students who (used to be passive) just showed improvement in their engagement
back to their own habit (become passive). The pattern on how to motivate them has
become familiar to them. They start to question about the activity as one of the
students asked where all these participation would be recorded in the design
cycle. I thanked the students for being critical and I tried to make sure the
students that all they have been doing in the learning process are counted
especially in criteria F (attitude to technology). I spend too much time in
gathering feedback to know their understanding about the topic. This caused the
time left is very limited to do the lesson evaluation (test 3). Questionnaire
result showed that the students motivation has increased from 65% to 76% in the
first cycle. 11% improvement showed that
the strategy helps to improve students motivation even though the target has
not yet achieved. Although there is 11% improvement on students’ motivation,
there is decrement average in the test result from 9.9 down to 6.3. The
difficulty level of the topic contributed to this result as it might need more
time to spend to discuss such kind of topic.
Reflection
Reflection
Based on the observation, My supervisor
and I concluded that the strategies have applied still need to be improved. The
previous strategy will still be using and add another strategy to it to improve
students’ motivation. The following are the strategies will be applied based on
the first reflection:
a.
Teacher must pay attention to the time management
so that there is enough time to do the evaluation at the end of the lesson.
b.
Teacher must vary the teaching method.
This time an audio video will be used to boost their motivation in learning
technology, exercises are also will be applied as it is very suitable to help the students to understand about MS. Access.
c.
Encouragement and praise still need to
be kept so that students can keep their motivation.
d.
Giving examples relevant to a real life is
also need to be kept as it will be easier for the students to understand the topic.
Cycle 2 : 3X80 minutes (15 October 2012 – 17 October)
Cycle 2 : 3X80 minutes (15 October 2012 – 17 October)
Plan
Based on the first reflection about
motivation, the following will be applied:
1.
Determine the strategies to improve
students’ motivation: Teacher vary the
teaching method (an audio, a video and exercises will be used in this cycle), discussion,
encouragement and praise.
2.
Determine the lesson objective:
At
the end of the lesson students should be able to know how to use MS. Access to
create a database.
3.
Design the lesson plan
4.
Prepare the teaching tools : examples of
video about database
Action
The action is done by
applying : vary the teaching method (an audio, video, exercises), discussion, encouragement
and praise. Before giving an exercise, teacher showed a video related to the
topic. Once the video done, students are asked to comment on it, teacher then comment
on students’ comment, discusses and continued with exercises for each meeting. The
question and answer session is held every end of the meeting to evaluate
students’ understanding about the topic for the day.
In this cycle, each
session is begun by displaying students’ contribution in the previous session
to motivate the students. The objective of the lesson then communicated as well
as the activity during the session. The teacher displayed a video related to
the database. Teacher asked students’ opinion regarding the video and discussed
it. Every contribution to the discussion is recorded and displayed on the white
board. The activity continued with lecturing the topic, then do exercises and
end the session with questions and answers.
Observation
Based on my observation
there are many interesting finding. An audio and video are able to attract
students’ attention. Students’ interest showed by many comments and questions came
from the students related to the video. Joshua related the video with privacy
issue while other students like Danastry more concern in the difficulty level
of the task as expressed by her question: “how to make a database like that”.
Emilio said that it must be very difficult to do so while other students said
that this is a university task.
During the exercise, I
received questions from Farrel and Kevin. In front of the class, I praised the
students’ effort. I expressed my feeling to Farrel and Kevin by saying how I
appreciated their effort to participate in the class discussion as it getting
often for them to ask question as well as answer question without being asked.
As the class clapped for them I can heared Kevin thanked me and smiled. Both of
them more confidence in asking more questions during the exercise. Students who
are interested in the task tend to ask more questions but I can see some
students just do browsing instead of doing the exercise. Reminding them to keep
focus on task only work for a while as they will go back to it after that. It
made me shock when a student raised his voice to answer me back as I reminded
him for the second time to be more focus on doing his task.
There is no test done
on this cycle. However, questions and answers related to the topic is done
every end of the session. Many students can answer the questions about the
function of data dictionary, a form, a query and a report on MS. Access but
still many students are still confused. The questionnaire result showed that
the students motivation more or less similar to the first cycle. Only very
little improvement from cycle1 to cycle 2 which is from 76.02% to 76.95%.
Reflection
Based on the second
cycle of the action research, it’s clear that the strategies still need to be
improved. Strategies must be thoroughly plan to make sure it suits for the
following topic as the following topic will be investigation stage report which
has no theory to deliver as well as no exercise to give. The following are the strategies will be
applied on the third cycle:
1. Vary
the teaching method (students will present their report, a small group
discussion).
2. Encouragement
and praise still need to be kept so that students can keep their motivation.
3. Environment
(classroom climate): apply democratic leadership in teaching. What happened
last time (a student raised his voice to answer me back) make me think to consider the importance of the element of
motivation which is environment. Therefore, the teacher will allow students to
discuss and decide how to do they work on their investigation report e.g. they
allow to set their own target of each session and make sure they will be able
to submit it on the due date.
Cycle
3 :
6x80 minutes (22 October 2012 – 31 October 2012)
Plan
Based on the second reflection about
motivation, my supervisor and I concluded the following will be applied:
1.
Determine the strategies to improve
students’ motivation: Teacher vary the
teaching (students will present their report, a small group discussion),
include encouragement and praise and apply democratic leadership in teaching
(allowing the students to set up their own target each session as long as they
will make it to submit the task on the due date). This is done to avoid
confrontation between the student and the teacher.
2.
Determine the lesson objective:
At
the end of the lesson students should be able to submit investigation report.
3.
Design the lesson plan
4.
Prepare the teaching tools : power point
Action
The
action is done by applying the following: Teacher vary the teaching (student’s
presentation, a small group discussion), include encouragement and praise and
apply democratic leadership in teaching.
In
the beginning of the lesson (teacher applied democratic leadership) the teacher
and students discussed about how do they do
the investigation report. Teacher and students discussed on how to set
up the target for the investigation so that students will be able to submit it on
time. Teacher allowed each student has his/her own target for each day or
session different from other student and make sure that the report will be done
on time. Once the agreement has made, student must follow the agreement and
achieve their target every end of the session. The students must save their
progress in the local network to be checked and compare to their target by the
teacher. Feedback from the teacher will be given the following meeting.
Every
end of each session, teacher will always give feedback regarding students’
progress. Positive comment to praise and encourage students’ effort as well as
comment how to improve is given the following session straight on students’
report. Students are encouraged to read the comment before continuing the task
in the following session.
Starting
from third session up to sixth session of the investigation, students are asked
to present (2-3 minutes) the main point of their investigation report. The
audience are encourage to pay attention, asking questions as well as feedback.
Every contribution to the discussion is recorded and displayed on the white
board.
Observation
Based
on my observation, there are many interesting finding. Students were so happy
when I allowed them to set up their own target of the investigation report
rather than the teacher set up the target for them. Positive comment comes from
Danastry, Emilio, Ismael, Randy, Jeremy and the comment “yayy” from the girls. They can finish their planning target for
investigation in 5 minutes and saved it on the school network for me to be
checked. Allowing the students to work based on the target they set up, make
the students feel like they can work according to their pace as each student
work at a different pace every session. However, some students use it in
different way as Mahesa and Ismael said
“it’s better this way, thank you ms.” they misused this strategy by not starting
to work on their task immediately but do browsing unrelated topic first then
use the remaining of the time to do their daily target.
It surprised me to see the progress in the investigation
report made by Kevin, Farrel, Hannif and Puti. It is very unusual (when compare
to term 1) to see these students work by following the target has been set up.
Perhaps the method ” set up their own target “ work well with these students.
However, Salsa and Ismael made very little progress for their report. I asked
Ismael and Mahesa to display their own target and their progress report. When I
challenged Ismael and Mahesa for not following the target they made, they said
sorry and promise to follow the target the following session. It looks easier
to ask them to follow their own target rather than asking them to stop talking
and back to work. This strategy has help me to avoid confrontation happen in
the classroom.
During
the investigation presentation, students follow the order easily as it had been
informed a week prior to the technology session. Teacher asked the other
students to comment and ask question regarding the presentation. Teacher then
gave feedback on students’ presentation as well as on students’ questions. I
praised Cody for the good job in explaining problem of the company he visited
during the presentation. As the class clapped for him, he said “so. . actually
I am smart” I can see he is motivated by the praise I gave. Not many students
asking questions during the presentation. However, as soon as all the
presentation done many students asked questions in person to make sure if the
problem they wrote in their report is correct.
Last
meeting observation before the due date (while students were working on their
investigation report) I could see very good progress on many students reports
especially students with late submission habit. Kevin, Ismail, Mahesa, Arya
convinced me that they can submitted it on time. However, there are about three
students asked for one day extention. I responded to their request by reminding
about the agreement they made and the target they set up.
The
observation sheet result showed that students’ motivation has improved from the
previous cycle which is from 76.95% to 79.35%. The evidence for this
improvement also showed by less number of students submit the task late. Last
Friday was the time for the students to submit their investigation report. With
proud Ismael and Mahesa said that he could finally submit his task on time as
it is their first time to submit the task on time. Other students also mention
that they feel relief that they did not submit it late. Out of
23 students there are only 5 students has not yet submitted the task. So, it is
about 21 % of the students did not submit their task on time. I expressed my
appreciation to students that able to make it and asked the students to clap
for their class for this improvement. Many students tried to remind their
friends to submit their task on time as I mentioned “if the five more students
able to submit their task on time for the following task it will make this
class the best class in technology”.
Reflection
There were 48%
of the students submitted their task late last term. This time, there are only
21% of the students submitted their task late. From the increased number of
students submit their task on time, it can be concluded that the strategies
applied work well to improve students’ motivation in doing the task as well as
submit it on time. Therefore, the same strategies applied in cycle 3 will still
be applied in cycle 4 to confirm this successful. Additional strategy will also
be needed to approach five students who did not able to submit the task on
time. However, I need to supervise the students more closely to make sure that
the students follow their plan. For this reason I have to make sure that I walk
around in the class and make sure to check each individual activity every
session.
Cycle
4 : 3x80
minutes (5 November 2012 – 7 November 2012)
Plan
Based on the third reflection about
motivation, my supervisor and I concluded that the following strategies will be
applied:
1.
Determine the strategies to improve
students’ motivation: Teacher vary the
teaching (teacher will ask students initiative to get feedback for their first
design, teacher make use of student’s work as an example in the lecturing of
the design), include encouragement and praise and apply democratic leadership
in teaching (allowing the students to set up their own target each session as
long as they will make it to submit on the due date) but this time I have to
make sure that I supervise them closely to avoid students do everything in the
last minute, additional strategy to 5 students is to give frequent, early, positive
feedback that supports students' beliefs that they can do well (teacher will
approach the student and feedback their work as often as possible). To make it
easier, I arrange the five students sitting near to my sitting.
2.
Determine the lesson objective:
At
the end of the lesson students should be able to generate a range of feasible
designs.
3.
Design the lesson plan
Prepare
the teaching tools: power point
Action
The
action is done by applying the following: Teacher vary the teaching (teacher
will ask students initiative to get feedback for their first design, teacher
make use of student’s work as an example in the lecturing of the design),
include encouragement and praise and apply democratic leadership in teaching.
In
the beginning of the lesson (teacher applied democratic leadership) the teacher
and students discussed about how do they do
the design report (like applied in cycle 3). Teacher and students
discussed on how to set up the target for the design so that students will be
able to submit it on time. Once the agreement has made, students must follow
the agreement or the consequence will be applied, students will show their
progress every end of the session. Feedback from the teacher will be given the
following meeting.
Teacher
will always give feedback regarding students’ progress. Positive comment to
praise and encourage students’ effort as well as comment how to improve is
given the following session straight on students’ report. Students are
encouraged to read the comment before continuing the task.
Observation
Based
on my observation, The students were able to start immediately as soon as the
objective of the lesson was explained to them. Like in the previous cycle, they
immediately plan the target of each day for the design stage.
From my observation, I can see that the
students eager to finish the target faster (as per agreement as long as they
can finish the target of the day, they can do “whatever they like”). However,
when they found that the design stage regarding database is a lot of job (as
they have to design data dictionary, forms, queries and reports for each design
as well as evaluate each design), some of the students start to bargain by
saying :” miss, if I do half of my today target here and half at home, it’s the
same right ?”. I found that the students able to understand my explanation when
I reminded them about the agreement that had been set up. One more time, I
found that this strategy work well and make us come to no confrontation.
In
the first and second session, most of the students were able to reach their
planning target. However, when it came to session three, many students ask for
an extension from Friday (09 November 2012) to Monday (12 November 2012) as
Friday is PD day for teacher which is holiday for the students. I encouraged
the students to make use of the time wisely as well as offer a solution when it
come to worst. Worst case scenario I offered is that they are allowed to submit
the soft copy by Friday as an evidence they follow their planning target and submit the hard copy on Monday in case
they don’t want to come to school during their holiday. I assumed that the
students accepted the decision as they clapped and said: “thank you miss”.
The
observation sheet result showed that students’ motivation has improved from the
previous cycle which is from 79.35% to 81.37%. The evidence for this
improvement also showed by very few number of students submit the task late.
Out of 24 students (one student move from10-2), there are only 2 students has
not yet submitted the task. So, it is about 8.3% of the students did not submit
their task on time. Again, to encourage the students, I expressed my
appreciation and asked the students to clap for their class for this huge
improvement.
Two
students who did not make it are Regina and Mahesa. From a casual interview
with Mahesa, I found out that Mahesa tend to take it easy for everything. He
even say :” I know how to do the task and I find it very easy. However, the
criteria of technology task is little, so I prefer to do other task first that
require harder criteria”. A conversation with Regina made me understand the
reason why Regina has not submitted her task. She said that she doesn’t know
why but she really forgot to submit the task, in fact she has done with the
task. She even convinced me that it will be her last time to submit the task
late.
Based
on the observation sheet result, I found out that the strategies applied are
work to improve students’ motivation. However, the students are able to
recognize the pattern of teacher to motivate them. Therefore, some of the
students very easy to go back to their habit (passive and not engage in the
learning process). Teacher is required to be more creative in designing class
activity as well as make the students keep engaging in the learning process.
The
strategies applied were able to improve students’ motivation from cycle 1 up to
cycle 4. Prior to the cycle 1, the average of students’ motivation was 65,14 %.
After the strategies applied, the average improved to 76.02% in cycle 1, 76.95%
in cycle 2, 79.35% in cycle 3 and 81.37% in cycle 4. In addition, there were
48% of the students submitted their task late last term, there were only 21% of
the students submitted their investigation stage late in the cycle 3 and there were
only 8.3% of the students submitted their task design stage late (in cycle 4). In other word, after the component of
motivation has applied there is improvement from 52% to 91.7% of students submit their task on
time.
Conclusion
From the result of the observations,
especially at the end of cycle four, can be concluded that the application of component
of motivations are able to improve students’ motivation therefore the number of
students submit the task on time are also improved.
Suggestions
1. There
is a need for the teacher to extend more cycles to the action research as well
as more strategies to apply so that improvement to students’ motivation to
minimum 90% can be achieved.
2. The
students are very easy to recognize the pattern of the treatment and caused to slow
down in the improvement of their motivation. Therefore, Teacher’s creativity in
designing class activities as well as keeping the students engagement during
the learning process are really needed.
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