Tag Archives: motivation

Competition

Guest Host: Sue Gilbert

Education Is Competition


I once received a 2-page course evaluation comment from a student (she was a teacher taking my Chinese class). In the treatise, she highlighted several elements she found good, but mostly what I remember is her opposition to the several competition-like activities I included. I would ask students to perform Chinese character writing on the board in front of their peers as a kind of race. I felt I was encouraging students to produce their characters fast and accurate. Most students, it seemed to me, enjoyed it. Or at least they were into it, excited about writing, and enjoying the moment. They would share ideas for how they remembered the characters. Seemed like sound pedagogy.

This student didn’t see these competitions in the same light. She saw only embarrassment – a form of public shaming in the guise of motivation. It’s a perspective that has stuck with me.

When I look for it, competition appears to be a pervasive element of the educational experience. We have formal sports competitions, and academic competitions, award lists, and a ranking grade system that seems to communication who won and who lost. We compete for scholarships and even for seats in a classroom.

Yet, there is a wholesome side to our competitive spirit. The coach who inspires the best in us, the teammates who share pride in our accomplishments and support in our disappointment, and the drive in ourselves to improve. This is the side we talk about with Sue Gilbert, a Kirkwood student in the Graphics Communication program. She shares her story and journey through an honors project on the Brotherhood of Competition.

Solving Problems

Guest Host: Jane Grabowksi

Education is Solving Problems

Every Fall, the faculty and staff of our college get together on the two days before Thanksgiving break for what we call Collaborative Learning Days. This year, Alan and I had a raucously good time facilitating sessions. We were lucky enough to do one on Play, in conjunction with our  colleague Kate Hess, a librarian and play researcher.  (Stay tuned for a podcast on play!) Alan did a session on solutions to puzzles within Angel, our campuswide LMS, and Nicole attended a session on common problems in teaching. The more we thought about these days, the more we realized that an awful lot of being an educator is solving problems. Students texting in class – is it a problem, why, how do you “solve” it? Students not attending class and their learning suffering? What do you do? Got tech trouble in the LMS…ack! Fire drill during a face-to-face class, or Internet outage during a distance one…OK, we’ll handle it…

Education is about solving problems, or at least approaching puzzles with a solution-oriented mindset. Recently Alan and I sat down with Jane Grabowski, an instructor in Communications, to chat about inquiry-based teaching methods, and how for her, it has helped resolve some of the traditional complaints about attendance, attention, motivation, and learner investment. We think inquiry-based models are pretty intriguing, and hope to explore them more in future podcasts.

In the meantime, have a listen to the podcast, and let us know how you’ve solved a particularly tricksy problem in your classroom, your teaching, or your learning. Comment or email us today!