Psychology Motivation

1.) For the most part I believe the students at my school were intrinsically motivated. This was because my teacher placed a huge emphasis on effort, and students did not very often receive tangible rewards for good behavior or performance. They were however praised when they put a lot of effort into assignments.

2.) A student's intrinsic motivation can be decreased by tangible rewards and praise. This is because a student may start to perform certain behaviors to simply obtain the reward or the praise of the teacher. In this way rewards and praise can increase extrinsic motivation.

3.) Expectancies are what a student expects the outcome of a given activity will be. Values are the worth students assign to a given assignment or activity. Depending on the expectancy and value a student places on an assignment they may be more or less motivated to complete it. If the student has poor expectations for how the assigment will turn out and does not value the assignment they are less likely to be motivated to do the assignment.

4.) some student level motivation I saw in the classroom was the class management plan. Everytime a student broke a rule or misbehaved they had to "move a clip" that was assigned to them. Each movement of their clip indicated a time amount taken from their recess. On a class level Each table could earn table points based on good behavior. The table with the most points got extra time at recess.

5.) I agree most with the self-worth theory. This is because I feel students can perform better simply by believing they can perform well if they put in the effort. I think many times students are trained to believe they are low achievers and thus judge that they will perform poorly on assigments and then put less effort into them because they don't believe they will succeed anyway. I think the idea of self worth plays a huge role in how students perform academically.

Technology Lesson Plans

Nichole Mahas Language Artshttp://docs.google.com/View?id=dgdtf2f_14b62zk7q

Math http://docs.google.com/View?id=dgdtf2f_2cqwz43cg

Science http://docs.google.com/View?id=dgdtf2f_3c3m54bhn

Technology Videos

Spiders:

This video taught me alot about how I can implement technology into my own classroom. I loved the idea of having the students take pictures of the creatures they are studying about. I thought it was a great idea to have a class website that not only displays the students pictures and work, but allows them to network with students from other states. This really helps students gain an understanding of networking and can easily help them share and learn new information with their peers. I thought that it was a great way to make information more meaningful to students.

Brown Bear Brown Bear:

I thought it was a great idea to let students digitally create their artwork rather than just having them use the traditional crayon and paper method. It really helps students improve their work as well as learn a new skill. It also helped me realize how easy it can be for students to learn technology skills, and how easily I can implement opportunities to learn technology skills in my own classroom.

Habitats:

This video really helped me see that technology can not only be used to supplement the students learning but can be used for presentational purposes like having a parent night. I think it is a great learning experience for students when they have to prepare a work that they will present to others and the program KidPix Deluxe really aided the students in this. I also learned that students are not too young to learn about copyright laws, this is something I should not be afraid to introduce to my own students.

Technology Inventory

On investigating the technology available to my mentor teacher I learned many things. As this technology course has gone forward we have seen alot of different technologies that are being used by different schools. Although the school I am doing my practicum in has many resources and technologies, some are not quite as accessible as others. There are plenty of computers with great software and internet, however, there are not projectors in every classroom. Also, There are not elmos in every classroom. However, these technologies are available to teachers if they want to check them out of the library. There is also science equipment available for check out. Overall I thought the technology available to the teachers is sufficient and easily accessible.
I completed the technology inventory, the midcourse evaluation, and the disclosure form.