Engagement and Motivation

The following are my thoughts on chapters 1 and 2 of Elizabeth Barkley's book, Student engagement techniques.

Objective: I really enjoyed reading chapter two, there were a few concepts that stood out to me, however, one in particular struck a chord as I recently had to deal with a student who met the following description. “Overstrivers are also successful students and will take on challenging tasks, but they are not entirely confident in their ability and consequently worry constantly about their grades and performance.” Barkley, E.F. 2010. Student Engagement Techniques. A handbook for college faculty. San Fransisco. Jossey-Bass.

Reflective: The student was particularly difficult to teach. She had been brought up in Saudi Arabia and had it ingrained in her that she was to be the best or nothing. This ultimately made her choose the most difficult projects, however, she dealt with major anxiety which led to poor overall performance. She was a good student but just set her sights far too high. We, the instructors, tried our best to find ways of getting her to succeed in but she would dismiss them and always fall back into her old ways. It was a tricky balance of Mental health care and motivation. I don’t think these patterns will change easily in this student.

Interpretive: This was a tricky chapter to get answers to these problems. I enjoyed how this chapter laid out the various types of learner patterns, success orientated, Overstriver, Failure-avoiders and Failure-Accepting. This resonated with me as I have everyone one of those types in my classes and were two of those students in high school and college. Firstly in High school I was the evader. I thought I would do well but had no value in my classes.

I found this quote very accurate “Evading is likely when success expectancies are high but task value perception is low, that is, student feel confident they can do the task but don’t see any reason to do so and instead daydream…”Barkley, E.F. 2010. Student Engagement Techniques. A handbook for college faculty. San Fransisco. Jossey-Bass. That’s me..the biggest daydreamer i know. All I wanted to do was play music and travel the world. When I returned to college in later life I was the exact opposite. I became the success orientated student that was an over achiever, focused and determines to be the best. I wouldn’t say my thinking has changed yet on this topic so far as I am awaiting the further chapters to give me more insight.

Decisional: I am looking forward to reading about the possible solutions to dealing with the different types of student characteristics. It is obvious that I am going to have the odd student with a challenging pattern and I want to know every technique i can use to benefit the students in their success.