Ch 4 Autonomy

I liked the idea of the four t’s that Pink brings up from Atlassian’s experience.  It says that task, time, team, and technique are the different ways he says people can have autonomy. Keeping these four ways to change up assignments might help students enjoy the class more and take time to understand the material. The idea of team is harder to do in school because people like to work with Type I people. This makes sense because everyone likes having motivated group members. Kimberly brought this up last time when she said that students that are Type I do their homework and try to learn from the class while type X people are just there because they have to be. When students pick their groups many times they pick friends or people that they know will do good work. The problem arises when the group is made up of Type X. The students are not as motivated to do well to learn and may not be motivated by the grades. I wonder if there are ways to give groups with Type X people more motivation without using carrot and sticks. 

Chapter 3

Kimberly I think the student would start to pay attention more and therefore would start being more engaged in class and starting to attain more information.  I am on the same boat as far as Jeff goes with baseball.  You play the game because you love it and you want to be as good as possible, but you also want to be recognized for what you have done.  I think this is a direct collation to education.  Students want to do their best and try hard, but they also want to be recognized for what they are doing.  I think this chapter/book do a great job of finding someone’s own self determination and feeding off of that.  How can we as educators find ways to motivate out students whether it is elementary, secondary, or special education?  Student choice is a common one that many teachers rely on, but I am just wondering if anyone has special or new ways to spark self-determination in students?

Chapter 3

In Jacque’s post she brought up the fact that Friedman has associated heart disease with how a person lived their lives, if they were aggressive, impatient, and had excessive motivation they were more prone to heart disease.  This was also a part of the chapter that got my attention.  From my different psychology courses I have learned about something called health psychology, which says exactly that, depending on a person’s psychological health and behaviors will determine how healthy that person is.  In Jeff’s post he wondered if he was exhibited both Type X and Type I behavior concerning his love and competition for baseball.  I say yes, because according to Pink you are born as a Type I behavior as your natural state.  Type X behavior is something you pick up from your environment at school, home, or work.  According to Pink the goal is to be just a Type I behavior by unlearning the negative Type X behaviors.  I say to Pink, “easier said than done”.  He acknowledges this at the end of the chapter, and agrees it will not happen overnight, but I think Type I behavior is contagious, and we have to start somewhere.

Chapter 3

If I read this correct Type B is very confident in themselves and laid back and Type A is always worried that they may screw up. A word that is being over-used in today’s world is “swagger”.  I find that this is how Type B would be portrayed if I am not mistaken.  The study by Friedman would suggest that a person with “swagger” will live a healthier life.  Kimberly I believe that very successful students draw from I and V.  I think about myself and baseball.  I play because I love the game and want to be as good as possible.  Also, however, I want to break records here and be remembered as I was in high school.  Would you consider this example to be a mixture of the two?  The book states that Type I likes recognition, but it is not a goal.  The book states that a combination of Type I and Type B would be the ideal human.  I agree with Type B being very important, but I believe you need a combination of Type I and X instead of one or the other.  Maybe this is just because it is how I view myself though.

Ch 3 Type I & Type X

McDonald, separating the student from the other students was a good strategy.  Some students like the one McDonald mention find an easy way to get around class, but do they learn?  I believe they just learn the skill of finding the easy way out, but they don’t learn the material.  For example, some secondary students just copy other students’ assignments just to have it done, but when it’s time for the test, they struggle.  I relate Chapter 3 to education with the following, “Type I behavior promotes greater physical and mental well-being,” I relate this with students been motivated with the subjects they like.  Let’s say that a student favorite subject is math.  That student will be really excited to attend class and learn new material.  He/she will have high self-esteem and students that hate math will not.  The student will devote his/her time doing homework in order to learn and master the new material because math matters to him/her and wants to learn it well.  I relate Type X with students that hate math and don’t want to be in math class, but they have to attend because they have to have math credits to graduate from high school. 

Ch 3 Type I and Type X

Jeff mentioned that some kids get paid for their good grades when talking about carrot and stick. I was one of the students that got paid for my good grades but I think that they helped me find grades important. It started off as a Type X behavior. I wanted to get good grades, which lead to money for me. As I got older and my parents encouraged me to get good grades they did not talk about the money but of what I was learning. I think this is a way to use money to help a person turn from a Type X to a Type I. I think it was also important that praise of doing well went along with it. Pink talked about Type I liking recognition but not working for it. I think recognition can be a powerful thing to help motivate because it is not something that is expected but it gives a good feeling in a helpful way.

Pink says that no one is one type all the time but that most people have tendencies to one or the other. I did not realize that how people are motivated could be related to heart disease. I had heard that stress can be a factor but had never thought about how intrinsic motivation could lead to stress that was not need when comparing Type A and Type B according to Friedman. 

Chapter two

I would have also have to agree with everyone’s blogs this far.  I know students use short cuts Kimberly because I was one of those students in high school.  I wasn’t a very academically motivated student then and I would do as many short cuts as possible.  I think this is a common theme with students though; why would they work so hard when they can take short cuts and have the work and get the same grades.  As far as students using cheat sheets or teachers letting them use them, I would have to disagree because I am elementary ed.  Elementary is so important in building the basic fundamentals I feel they don’t need them.  I really don’t have an opinion for high school because that’s not my area to speak for.  In my practicum now, the students were spelling words on their own with dry ease boards and I saw one student just copied the person across from him, upside down and backwards.  I separated him and then he started working better on this own.  This is just one small simple way of taking away short cuts.

Chapter 2 & 2A

I would have to agree with everyone’s answer.  I agree because students do sometimes take short cuts to get good grades.  They just want to have good grades because as Jeff said parents paid their kids or student’s just want to have an A as Jacque mention.  I relate education to three of the seven flaws, “they can crush creativity, they can become addictive, and they can foster short-term thinking.” As Barb mention with the S.P.O.T awards the awards can become addictive and students would have positive behavior to get the award.  I think it can foster short-term thinking because for example, in math there are formulas and is hard to remember all.  Some teacher let students use formula sheets for tests.  I think letting student use a note card with formulas would allow students to foster short-term thinking.  They will see the formula and apply it to the problem, but first they have to verify what formula to use.  Students can crush creativity on projects.   Students have good imagination and are very creative.  This can be taken out from students the first day of class, as we did in this class by creating our personal flag.

Chapter 2

I agree with Jeff and Jacque when they mentioned that carrots and sticks could encourage cheating, shortcuts, and unethical behavior.  In order to be the best, students’ visions can become jaded leading to destructive behavior.  I also think they can be addictive.  The example that Jacque gave about the students seeking recognition for every good behavior can hinder the point of good behavior.   Students need to learn that those are the behaviors that are expected and there will not be a reward for acting appropriately.  I saw this at Longfellow school where they have the S.P.O.T. awards, when faculty spots good behavior a student receives a spot card and the class with the most receives a party.  Students would go up to the teachers and explain what good deed they did and expect a spot card, and when they did not receive one it made them upset.  As an educator I believe carrots and sticks can be useful.  I will make my classroom a place where my students are encouraged to take risks and understand that it is ok they don’t always have the right answer.  Students need to know why a task is important for them to complete, and it is ok to empathize with how they feel about the task.

Chapter 2

One of the seven deadly flaws is that it can encourage cheating, shortcuts, and unethical behavior.  This is very true some parents used to pay kids if they got good grades.  These students would cheat off of classmates’ homework and cheat on tests so they got good grades even if they did not maintain the knowledge they still got rewarded.  As Jacque said students would hide notecards with the formulas in their calculators in order to help their test grade.  However, if carrots and sticks are used properly as with Jacque’s student with the sticker example they can be helpful.  Students need to understand why they are doing what they are doing it and how it will help them.  At my observation today my teacher rewards good behavior not how good the students work is done or how fast it is done.  This keeps order in the classroom, which will in return help their work habits at school.  I never thought of this before, but as I observed I realized it really works!

Chapter 2 Seven Deadly Flaws

Grades in general can be the carrot and stick model. In one of my math classes my freshman year of high school the students all wanted A’s in the class. The teacher did not give formulas for the test and many students made note cards with the formulas on it and put it in their calculator. I have seen a teacher making a sticker chart with categories be helpful for a young student that did not know how to behave in class. The teacher talked over why she did or did not get a sticker and the girl did better than before she had the chart. This was only useful because the girl wanted the stickers. Like Kimberly mentioned in motivation 2.0 the reward has to fit the student. If the student likes to read like Kimberly said it works but if they don’t then they do not have any incentive to stay on task to finish. Another flaw is carrot and stick model can extinguish intrinsic motivation. I saw this in my internship when classes got free time when the class received a certain amount of complements from other teachers. This made the students start asking teachers to say good things to their teacher. I like the idea that Pink brings up of “now that” rewards as an alternative. I have had teachers bring cookies when the class did well on a test. It made everyone feel good about how we did and we did not expect it every time.