REINFORCING STUDENT EFFORT

 By: Dr. Armãndo R. Tolliver | EDUCATOR | February 28, 2017

            Effort and recognition speak to the attitudes and beliefs of students, and teachers must show the connection between effort and achievement (Varlas, 2002). Too many students distorted views of success, and failure is no longer scary or painful, it has become the norm. As teachers it is imperative that we create an environment for students where their past failures are irrelevant to the learning occurring inside the classroom. “Failure is the opportunity to begin again, more intelligently" (Ford, n.d.) Another issue is that some students fail to see the relationship between academic success and future opportunities. Research shows that although not all students realize the importance of effort, they can learn to change their beliefs to emphasize effort (Varlas, 2002; Marzano, Pickering, & Pollock, 2006). The best teaching always takes place in the framework of high expectations. This indicates the need to challenge and push students, not to the point where they give up but to the point where they think, "Wow, look at me go!" Rather than allow students to use their problems and excuses, I try to encourage them to overcome their obstacles, and remind them there are times when something constructive is born out of adversity. Nelson Mandela once said, “After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb.” I translate this to students by telling them, “You can climb that great hill. This journey will not easy but you will make it. I am sure that there are times when you will just felt like giving up, but persevere, keep climbing, never give up and as a result you will possess something that not anyone can take away from you that is the gateway to countless opportunities--opportunities that were not as easily available to many others. You are a winner and all that you need to possess in order to move forward and succeed is within you.”

            At the start of every school year, I explicitly teach students about the relationship between effort and achievement. To do this, I share a personal testimony of defining moments in my life of humble beginnings where I faced household challenges, alongside episodes of homelessness. I usually follow up my testimony with other examples in connection with famous people who were resilient in their journey to success. This helps students to recognize success in all situations and under many situations in order to first change their attitudes towards failures and life in general. I leave students with the question, what does effort look like?

            During the school year, I also make sure to reflect on students’ efforts periodically by charting areas of progress, both individually and collectively (e.g. using aggregate data to high students’ success, grade reflections, etc.). I saw this as a an opportunity to praise students while giving relevant and appropriate feedback for areas to work on in order to improve. This provided students with a visual representation of effort that really came in handy during interim reports and report cards, but it was also a useful strategy whenever a student scored poorly on an assignment or test. I recall a conversation with one student who was so nervous before taking a state assessment. She had been working diligently all quarter, but was unsure of how successful she would be on an upcoming assessment. I told here, “You may feel ambivalent because you were not successful on the first try, but the end is not here. Relax; be more confident, because you made it this far. I know that you will do great things in the future.” She scored proficient on the assessment. When I saw her later in the summer, she seemed to internalize the value of effort and the desired outcome.

I think what has worked best, primarily as a follow-up, is to use personal recognition and praise to reinforce effort. A simple recipe for reinforcing student choices during instructional time has been to track and narrate positive points. The students do something that warrants attention, tell the student what he or she did, praise the student with a smile, plug a point into the Class Dojo system and move back to the lesson. For example, "Thank you Josh for your participation in helping us to answer that challenging problem." The students who I have used this strategy with have been able to better make the connection between effort and improvement. One of the concrete symbols of recognition I really like to do at the end of each semester, which gives students a shared ideal regarding effort and achievement, is a ceremonial BUG Awards (bringing up grades) and chat-n-chew reception, where I distribute academic recognition pins to students. At the start of the next semester students are pumped and even the more disengaged began to exhibit added effort, all in hopes of receiving an award or simply being noticed for trying.

Research suggests the use of rubrics to recognize and reinforce effort because it allows students to assess themselves for personal recognition of effort (Marzano et al., 2006). I use rubrics with most assignments in order to provide students an objective form of measurement, which helps to reinforce student effort on assignments. However, one of the areas I am still trying to address, especially in this age of accountability, is how to objectively assess effort. When it comes to grades, they are measures of performance. If students are unable to demonstrate their mastery via an exam, paper, project or other assessment, they have not mastered the material or skill; however, students can always make the case for effort. “I studied for hours and I still failed.” “I worked hard this marking period, but I just can’t do good on your tests and quizzes.” “I do all my homework and I still fail.” At times, it is hard to imagine trying that hard and not mastering the material or producing a quality product, but in some cases it happens. How do you objectively address it, especially when you are required by school administration not to include attendance and class participation? What about the students who are chronically absent, do not regularly complete homework, but still perform well, are they docked for not showing effort? Is it a viable dimension of the grade?

Suggested Citation

Tolliver, A. R. (2017). Reinforcing Student Effort. [Education Project Online]. Retrieved online at http://www.educationprojectonline.com/2017/02/recognizing-student-effort.html.

References

Henry Ford. (n.d.). BrainyQuote.com. Retrieved February 2, 2017, from BrainyQuote.com Web site: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/h/henryford121339.html

Nelson Mandela. (n.d.). BrainyQuote.com. Retrieved February 2, 2017, from BrainyQuote.com Web site: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/n/nelsonmand178785.html

Marzano, R. J., Pickering. D. J, & Pollock, J. E. (2006). Classroom instruction that works: Research-based strategies for increasing student achievement. Alexandria,

VA: ASCD.

Varlas, L. (2002). Getting acquainted with the essential nine. Alexandria, VA: ASCD

Curriculum Update.