Effort+and+Recognition

How do you currently apply this strategy with(out) technology?
The idea of providing recognition to effort relies heavily on pleasing one’s self or someone else. In addition, giving recognition for effort works well when an assignment is project based to show a general understanding of a concept. In many of my project rubrics, I have a category for neatness. It seems silly to assess a high schooler’s penmanship or ability to draw, but it needs to be a requirement to get quality work. Even though my main objective is not neatness, it is still something that needs to be recognized. So the issue lies with how I grade neatness. The grade comes from my idea of how neat the project is, i.e. am I pleased by what I am looking at. The critique that is given about a student’s neatness is specific and meant to encourage behavior even if the project hasn’t met all of the requirements. I think this is important because students need to know that all of the work they put into a project wasn’t a waste and that there is something to learn from the effort. When it comes to technology, effort plays a big role in recognition. Many teachers aren’t technology teachers or savvy with the tool. The same can be said about students. So when teaching a student how to use technology to demonstrate learning, consideration has to be given to how the student used the tool to present the learning. There have been many instances that a student’s project has met the objective while on paper, but once it is transferred to computer, the bells and whistles aren’t sounding because of technical issues. It is at this time that the effort has to be recognized as achieving the determined goal for the project.

Apply and Reflect
Provide evidence of the tool you learned One of the points made in the reading was that educators need to teacher the relationship between effort and achievement. One way of doing this is to present examples of people, who have been successful based on their efforts rather than achievements. Huge Lab would be a great exercise for students to research someone they know whose efforts have created success and not necessarily great achievements. This would allow students to examine what their idea of effort means to them in relation to the person they are exploring. Furthermore, a collect of class posters could be displayed to remind students the work that is involved in achieving effort sometimes is just as difficult as achieving tangible success but just as rewarding.