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Post by Ms. English on May 31, 2022 7:14:05 GMT -5
Post your answers to the discussion question here. Make sure to read the responses of those posted before you and respond directly to them when appropriate before posting your own.
"Students will float to the mark you set," Rose writes (par. 11). Write about a time in your life when this was true of you, and reflect more generally on your life as a student. Have you found that your educational experiences thus far have pushed you to exceed what you originally thought was possible? What kinds of motivation are built into our educational system? Has traditional motivation (such as getting good grades) worked for you? What kind of an educational system might motivate all students?
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Post by nateyat on Jul 11, 2022 23:26:57 GMT -5
This statement is one hundred percent true. Students will only go as far as the mark if they are not pushed. When I was in elementary school I was on an IEP. I honestly just did not have a growth mindset. I went to a predominantly white elementary school and a lot of the kids were very privileged. I kind of had the mentality of why even try if I am not starting at that same place as everyone else. These were the dominant things keeping me stagnant in my education. It had nothing to do with my ability to learn more so my ability to even try. I got put into these classes where I was not expected to do anything and so I accomplished nothing. I was separated from the other kids to go to these classes making the root of my issues even worse. It only created more differences between me and my fellow peers. Then when I reached sixth grade and was having the same struggles my mom moved me to KPS. I was honestly shocked by the level of diversity and inclusion within the school system. More was expected of me in this different environment. I got put into standard classes as they tried to figure out where to place me or if I even needed the assistance anymore. I felt a lot of the same feelings Rose had in the story because I was in an IEP for so long, that I was missing essential learning blocks that were foundational pieces. Moving forward in my education seemed like an uphill battle. I was constantly just trying to play catchup. Which was an awful combination mixed with my perpetual laziness from years of just being comfortable with not putting in any effort. I remember I had a history teacher that same year I switched schools. His course was surprisingly rigorous. I did not like the teacher that much either. He was very strict and did not tolerate any form of disrespect, or at least what he perceived as disrespect. It seemed as if he was in a state of constant irritation. It was only about three weeks into the school year. I was still getting pulled from some classes and asked if I needed help and my progress was being closely monatored. I was asked to leave history class for one of these standard check-ins and my teacher followed. I was a little confused because this was not normal practice. He had an entire class of students to attend to. He asked a lot of questions the contents of which I do not remember in great detail. In summary, he asked why I was constantly getting pulled, that I never ask him for extra help, and that I am flourishing in this environment. He even argued that constantly pulling me out is what is hindering my success more than anything else. This was very moving to me. It made me start to care because I realized that other people care about my education as well. With support from my parents, teachers such as these, and my changing of schools. I managed to get fully off my IEP in a matter of months. I really started to care about grades. I started to get straight A's, took honors courses, and earned credits for high school. I learned that even though I started behind caching up and surpassing expectations was even more gratifying than just getting by. I actually strived for not just average but perfection. I do think getting good grades is a motivator in itself. All it is is a letter on paper. You have to want to feel that sense of accomplishment. I do not think that there is one educational system that will work for all students. The IEP programs that I was in were designed to help me and they didn't. However, I know students that are in these programs which not only help but are essential for them to be successful. There are different types of IEPs. Not all of them are for educational support. Some are just for kids who might need breaks for anxiety, are diabetic and need snacks, or have a hearing issue and need to be put in the front of the class. I think these slight variations are fantastic. Not everyone learns the same way or even defines successes and accomplishments in the same way. Accommodation and support from every person within the educational system are motivating for the student, grades just are one way to express that success and are not even a full measure of it.
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Post by aisacksen on Jul 20, 2022 11:21:09 GMT -5
I left KAMSC halfway through last year; it was a really difficult choice for me to make, but in the end I knew it was the best option for my mental health. After coming back to Norrix for all my classes, I realized just how low the bar can be; there is such a drastic variety of effort and motivation levels in our school. Some of my classes were designed just to get the struggling kids through with a passing grade. In those situations, it was disheartening to see how easy it was to get good grades. At KAMSC, the bar is so so high; the environment is extremely high tension. From what I experienced, the motivation for most kids there is fear of failure; they've always been the best in their classes, and the smartest, and they need to stay there for there own self worth. At Norrix, theres some kids like that, but the work load is drastically different. Kids at Norrix are getting all A's and have the highest GPA, but some haven't ever truly struggled at something. I think KAMSC is far too intense for high schoolers who want to have a well rounded life (at least in my opinion), but Norrix can be jokingly easy. I think the balance is found in a happy medium of struggle but also accommodation.
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Post by aisacksen on Jul 20, 2022 11:24:27 GMT -5
" Not everyone learns the same way or even defines successes and accomplishments in the same way. Accommodation and support from every person within the educational system are motivating for the student, grades just are one way to express that success and are not even a full measure of it." This is an excellent point. Another thing I think we run into in high level alternative learning programs like KASMC or ATYP is a lack of understanding and flexibility for how students learn; often times the teachers are just trying to shove information at the students as quickly as possible. I think theres a difference in learning something in order to pass a test and learning something in order to comprehend, understand, and apply that information. That's also going to look different for each student or group of students, and our school system is not designed in an order to accomodate people that might not pick up as quickly or those who learn in another way.
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Post by afuerst on Jul 21, 2022 13:40:12 GMT -5
Last year I took geometry as my math class, and while I struggled to learn the subject, I did learn quite a bit about how our school system works. The teacher was committed to making sure as many students as possible passed their class, but that was about it. We were allowed to reference our notes for tests and quizzes, and if it wasn't for that simple policy, I would have had far worse scores. The teacher tried their best but struggled to instill even the simplest concepts in me and the rest of the class. I was able to "float to the mark" that was set for me and got good final grades, but that was simply due to the motivation of having a good grade left on my high school transcript. Grades have always been the thing keeping me motivated, however, they often leave me floating up the mark expected of me and staying there. But when in regards to things I'm more interested and engaged in, I tend to float above the mark due to interest and the desire to prove myself.
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Post by MVerne on Jul 29, 2022 16:47:07 GMT -5
I am not sure if this personally applies to me, I have never easily passed a class, I always had to work extra hard to continuously pass a class. I have been pushed really hard in every class I have taken. This did happen once though with a history class of mine. I thought I would not do well on a big piece of writing, and I was not feeling confident. I ended up getting a really high score on it and I was surprised. That really pushed me past what I thought was possible for me. Our education system’s motivation is based on shame in my opinion. You feel bad if you don’t live up to others, and people smarter than you are the constant examples of what you should be like in our society. If you don’t learn or perform like those ahead of you, you feel ashamed and useless. My motivation has always been to live how I want. To strive to work hard so I can get the job that I want. The motivation that students need is knowledge. The feeling of completion. Instead of being burnt out, having fun lessons that make you interested in learning.
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Post by BraedenDavis on Jul 29, 2022 22:10:04 GMT -5
The statement "Students will float to the mark you set" is somewhat of a difficult concept. Assuming that I am interpreting this statement correctly, I believe that with some students, this much is true; they will eventually, somehow and someway, find a way to the expectations a teacher sets. However, some will start to sink below the expectations, and others will rise above the expectations. In addition to that, this all depends on the actual bar that the teacher sets. If the teacher doesn't necessarily care about how their students do then that mark is not very hard to reach. However if the teacher sets unnecessarily high standards, many may end up sinking because they lack the proper motivation to reach those standards. It all depends on either the individual motivations that each person has on their own, or how motivated the teacher can make their students. In terms of my own personal experience, it was very easy to float to the mark and sometimes even past the mark because of the extremely high expectations I set for myself in terms of my performance in school. I was constantly stressed because I didn't want to look bad in the eyes of others, or in my own eyes. There isn't a clear answer to motivating all students, but generally, an educational system that could do that would be forcing less stress and pressure and create a more open process to creating and getting work done.
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Post by CameronM on Aug 3, 2022 14:42:59 GMT -5
The statement "Students will float to the mark you set" is one I have mixed feelings about. I feel as a student that for a certain amount of time I will follow the teacher's expectations almost to perfection no matter how the bar may be set. Although with time I will begin to lose motivation for the class and just begin to fall behind in class. This happened to me in my first Ap class, at first I followed the teacher's expectations of reading almost every night and working hard on all of my writings. Then over time I lost motivation for the class and no one was setting a standard for me to meet, so my grade in the class slipped and I did not try as hard in the class. I noticed that my grade was always lower than my peers, so I talked to my teacher about what was going on and now I had someone to help keep me accountable along with starting to have the bar raised again I shifted my mindset and was able to catch up. I learned that I needed to not only follow the teacher's standards for the class but also have my own for myself in the class in order for me to be successful. I also found that keeping my grades either at a B or above has been good motivation for me to both get my work done and do well on it.
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Post by Kate S on Aug 4, 2022 13:26:36 GMT -5
I have always been a pretty competitive person and getting high grades is a good motivator for me. I remember one time in Biology during freshman year we were having one of the first tests and my teacher kept going on and on about how hard the test was going to be. It was almost as if she was preparing us for doing poorly like she wanted us to fail which was really strange to me. There were a lot of terms and the test was timed so all the terms had to be practically reflex. I was super nervous about this test and sure enough, just like my teacher had said, I didn’t really end up doing well. Being a student that usually does well this didn’t sit right with me and was kind of a shock to the system. It did, however, end up motivating me to do better on the next test. While the grade system works for me I can see how others might find it discouraging. I was thinking that maybe an educational system where grades aren’t based on getting all the answers right but just improving instead. So maybe there would be more pre assessments and instead of getting letter grades there would be percentages of how much you had improved. This way everyone can focus on themselves and set their own goals without the stress of being ranked against all of their peers.
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Post by Lucy L on Aug 4, 2022 21:16:38 GMT -5
Last year I took geometry as my math class, and while I struggled to learn the subject, I did learn quite a bit about how our school system works. The teacher was committed to making sure as many students as possible passed their class, but that was about it. We were allowed to reference our notes for tests and quizzes, and if it wasn't for that simple policy, I would have had far worse scores. The teacher tried their best but struggled to instill even the simplest concepts in me and the rest of the class. I was able to "float to the mark" that was set for me and got good final grades, but that was simply due to the motivation of having a good grade left on my high school transcript. Grades have always been the thing keeping me motivated, however, they often leave me floating up the mark expected of me and staying there. But when in regards to things I'm more interested and engaged in, I tend to float above the mark due to interest and the desire to prove myself. I totally agree with this, I noticed the same thing in some of the classes that I took last year. I took two AP classes and most of my others were "general" or just introductory courses, I noticed that the course material was distributed in different ways and that the general classes seemingly had a lot more homework but the AP courses involved more time and effort. In my introductory biology class, there was a ton of in-class work and assignments to complete at home, this high volume of assignments with minor value and effort diluted the scoring for the class so it was easier to miss assignments without dropping your grade. By making the class cluttered with “busywork” and assignments that were not relevant to the current topic there was little intrinsic motivation to learn the material as I knew that I would pass the class either way. By comparison, my AP classes had fewer assignments, but those that we had required more in-depth learning and further research so I felt that I learned more.
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Post by ASedore on Aug 9, 2022 12:31:46 GMT -5
Last year I took U.S. History in my first and second trimesters, each with a different teacher. Reflecting back on the varying experiences that I had in each class makes me realize that some teachers expect more of students than others and set their mark at different places. The first teacher that I had didn't expect very much out of his students and made the class very easy to pass. If you showed up to class and did a portion of what was required, you could get a good grade. This made it very easy for me to pass the class with an A and did not push me to try. I did the bare minimum of what was expected and got praised for my efforts. However, with in my second trimester the teacher required more effort and gave assignments that required thought. This made me more interested and engaged in the material that I was learning and allowed me to have a deeper understanding. From my experience, I believe that when teachers push you to do your best in a subject it leads to better learning and motivates students to try.
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Question 4
Aug 10, 2022 15:26:44 GMT -5
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Post by iessink on Aug 10, 2022 15:26:44 GMT -5
This statement has definitely been very accurate in my life in the classroom and in sports. I know that I’ve had greta teachers in the past that would be really great and pushing you to want to be better not to just get a good grade but to actually get something out of it for yourself. I’ve also had bad teachers that have set a low bar for expectations and I don’t get anything out of the class. Same with sport coaches, if I don’t feel like they don’t have high expectations of me than it’s hard to know if I will ever be better than those expectations. I think our education system focuses a lot in grades and hard work, which is good and works for me but it doesn’t for everyone. I know that a lot of people can’t handle that pressure or that’s not enough motivation to push themselves. I think if the education system was more focused on tailoring it’s self to the student and they feel supported and there are people that believe in them, there would be more motivation.
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Question 4
Aug 11, 2022 16:47:59 GMT -5
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Post by chanks on Aug 11, 2022 16:47:59 GMT -5
The phrase “Students will float to the mark you set”, is a tricky concept. This concept applies to my schooling life so far because it started to become prominent as I took honors classes. Especially from knowing tons of people generally do not expect people like me to be successful or touch a certain level. It's more of an intrinsic motivation. There has been times where I’ve done certain portions of work just to get by. Once I realized the goals I have set for myself doing work just to get by is not going to help me reach them. I have found that my education has pushed me to exceed the unexpected. It’s an exhilarating feeling, knowing the hard work pays off, getting rewards or small words of affirmation even from yourself helps in the long run.I think the biggest use of motivation in highschool is probably graduation and grades. A lot of times people associate bad or mediocre grades with failure and I don’t believe it should be because it’s not always the case. Good grades always motivate me but it’s really the lifestyle I want that keeps me going and giving Joy to others that I did such accomplishments. A kind of educational system that might motivate all students is breaking down what people actually want to do and adding more programs where students can look into certain careers.
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Post by :) on Aug 16, 2022 11:34:43 GMT -5
“Students will float to the mark you set”, to me this means that if you set the goal at a low bar that's where students go but if you raise the bar they will push themselves to meet that bar. I think as a student that bar has always been to get an A. This is a task that is super easy for some and very hard for others. For me math classes have always come more easily than English classes have. So I have to push myself much much harder in an English class to meet my goal of an A then I do in a math class. I believe that the educational system has also kind of hurt students' motivation as they set this bar of getting an A is what you need. I think it is good that they push us to be our best, but I do think they are doing it the wrong way. I have always felt and been told that if I don’t get A’s I will not get into a good college, and if I don’t get into a good college then I will not have a good future. I think that this pressure that they put on us is creating problems. If they just pushed us to get A’s but did not make it the end all be all then I think that students would work and do much better in school.
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Post by Ellen T on Aug 18, 2022 16:48:46 GMT -5
This is a quote that is definitely interpreted differently though different people. I read my fellow classmates responses and see that we all have different views. To me this quote doesn't really sit right. I understand that students will push themselves to raise to the expectations of certain teachers and people in their lives but this wholeheartedly depends on what these teachers and people are like and if those learning from them enjoy what they are teaching them. I personally do not favor math all the time because I haven't had a math teacher I really enjoyed since the 6th grade. Many teachers I had in this subject have told me to ask less questions because asking so many questions isn't supported in math. situations like this seem to cause anxieties I have personally and lead me to push myself less in these classes. On the other hand, English has always been a wonderful subject for me that I enjoy pushing myself in because I have had several wonderful english teachers and I love to read as much as I possibly can. Because I love this subject so much I find that pushing myself and others pushing me is a more common and welcome occurrence. So I would change the quote,"Students will float to the mark you set" just a little. I would say students will float to the mark they set. Humans always let others push them forward in life but we always come back to the basic gut feeling in all of us that tells us to go where we lead ourselves.
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