The Efficacy of an “A”

            What does an A really mean?  As a parent and educator, I can tell you what I don’t want it to mean. I don’t want an ‘A’ to mean students passed the test. I want an ‘A’ to mean so much more than that! An A should represent engagement with learning.

            The engagement research states that highly engaged students are enthusiastic and think deeply about their schoolwork (Cleary & Zimmerman, 2012). Behaviorally engaged students participate in class and attend school; emotionally engaged students persevere and are resilient because they understand that mistakes happen, that the bad grade today was due to something that can be fixed. These students monitor their work and seek extra-help and/or ask questions to clarify their thinking. Lastly, an ‘A’ student is cognitively engaged; they are self-regulated learners who think about the process of learning to ensure that they submit quality homework on time (Fredrick et al. 2004).

            There is nothing earth shattering about what I’ve written so far, most educational systems include homework, participation and attendance in their grading system. However, there is a need to better define the systems for evaluating homework, participation and attendance in order to properly assess and include engagement as part of the ‘A’ criteria. For instance, the assessment grade could include test corrections. This practice is consistent with research demonstrating that formative assessment promotes student learning through feedback that helps them “modify their learning activities in which they are engaged” (Filsecker & Kerres, 2014).

            Homework often gets a bad rap by parents, students, and, sometimes, teachers. However, homework has been shown to play an important role in helping school age children learn to set goals, monitor their on-task behavior, manage their time, self-evaluate, and delay gratification.  The criteria for an ‘A’ should include homework as an indicator of engagement. There are researchers who believe homework is not an effective instructional tool (Kohn, 2006). I disagree. There is a large body of research that lists the advantages of homework (Bembenutty, 2011; Cooper, 2006; Kitsantas & Zimmerman, 2009; Harris, L. 2011).  These studies argue that homework promotes self-regulatory behaviors that are important indicators for success at school and life.

            As for attendance, it should not be a grade for showing up. Attendance could be a valuable marker of engagement. The literature on attendance is clear, when student are in school they are there to learn. They engage in academic conversations in the classroom, seek-help, and arrive on time (Appleton et al., 2008, Cleary & Zimmerman, 2012; Lawson & Lawson, 2013; Martin, 2012).  

            An ‘A’ student is a model worker. To be ‘outstanding’ takes engagement in the activity, not just ability.

References

Appleton, J., Christenson, S., & furlong, M., (2008).  Student engagement with school: Critical conceptual and methodological issues of the construct.  Psychology in the Schools, 45, 369-386.

Bembenutty, H., (2011). Meaningful and maladaptive homework practices: The role of self-efficacy and self-regulation. Journal of Advanced Academics, 22, 3.

Cleary, T. & Zimmerman, B. (2012). A cyclical self-regulatory account of student engagement: Theoretical foundations and applications. Handbook of Research on Student Engagement, Christenson et al. (eds).

Filsecker, M. & Kerres, M. (2012). Repositioning formative assessment from an educational assessment perspective: A response to Dunn & Mulvenon (2009). Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation, 14, 7 pp. 2.

Fredrick, J., Blumenfeld, P., & Paris, A. (2004). School Engagement: Potential of the concept, state of the evidence. Review of Educational Research. 74(1), 59-109.

Harris, L. (2011). Secondary teachers’ conceptions of student engagement: Engagement in learning or in schooling? Teaching and Teacher Education, 27, 376-386. DOI: 10.1016/j.tate.2010.09.006

Kitsantas, A. & Zimmerman, B. (2009). College students’ homework and academic achievement: The mediating role of self-regulatory beliefs. Metacognition Learning, 4, 97-110.

Kohn, Alfie. The homework myth: Why our kids get too much of a bad thing. Cambridge, MA. Da Capo Press, 2006.

 Martin, A., (2011). Courage in the classroom: Exploring a new framework predicting academic performance and engagement. School Psychology Quarterly, 26, 145-160.

Zimmerman, B. (1989b). Self-regulated learning and academic achievement: Models of self-regulated learning and academic achievement. (pp. 1-25). Springer-Verlag New York Inc., New York, New York.

Self-efficacy, the belief in one's ability to achieve, motivates one to sustain efforts toward accomplishing a goal.

Self-efficacy is the belief in one's ability/knowledge to attain a goal. It is a strong predictor of academic success. Students with strong self-efficacy show interest, value a goal, and are able to sustain attention toward a goal. But, what happens to students who believe they do not have the skills necessary to attain the goal? Sometimes they give up.  These students are often labeled as 'underachievers' or 'lazy.'  

Low self-efficacy has been shown to positively correlate with low motivation. And, low motivation is positively correlated to low academic performance. Makes sense, right? ...If I believe that math is not my 'thing' and that no matter what I do I still can't get an 'A,' why waste energy on a lost cause!  

Case in point (true story). . . a junior in high school has never excelled in math. For three years he had a tutor to help him with homework to help him squeak by with mediocre math scores.  In his junior year he hits a new low, a D+ in Algebra II/Trig.  A new strategy was put in place at home... no tutor was hired but his mother decided to do homework along with him every night. The reason for this decision was two fold. One, mom wanted to model good math study behavior. And two, she wanted to monitor and help him reflect on the process of learning math. Not an easy task. Mom was not ready to tackle the math curriculum, but they worked along with the book and when they did not understand the son had to teach mom or they visited math site or YouTube videos.

For months, mom and son sat side by side doing homework. They worked on math homework problems individually then compared answers. When the answers did not match they talked through the problem, watched YouTube videos until they agreed on one correct answer ( he circled the question to ask his teacher for help later). It was a painful process and one that took an extraordinary amount of time and commitment.

Progress was slow, but one night for the first time in his math academic career mom witnessed a spark of confidence. The 'not a math' student finished a problem first and taught mom why absolute values have to be isolated and ordered between signs before interval notations!

Beyond competency in math, this student increased his math efficacy. As he became more mindful, effortful, and engaged in math practice he experienced more success at school (grades). As he experienced more success at school, his belief in his ability increased and he moved math homework from the bottom of his 'to-do' list to the top.  

How Beliefs impact Academic Achievement, CHADD 2013

CHADD2013

"I'm just not a math person." "The test was easy." "I guessed."...

     Beliefs play a key role in student academic achievement. They influence the internal standards learners use to create goals, exert effort, and persist in the face of difficulty. Students who believe a task is manageable have a belief that they have the ability or the necessary tools to successfully act to complete the task. Acting to complete a task is more commonly known as motivation. On the other hand, students who believe they don't have the ability to achieve the task will avoid the task because they believe it is not in their ability to complete it.

    Helping struggling students achieve begins with helping them recognize how the beliefs they hold may negatively influence their progress toward achievement. This training begins with uncovering/examining the beliefs that drive struggling students. Inventory instruments such as the Adolescent Self-regulation Inventory(ASRI) or a teacher made surveys (below) are useful tools in uncovering the belief systems students  use to direct their energy toward achievement.

Created using Formsite.com

     In my work with students, I use the information gained from the survey above to help students identify areas of weakness and strengths; to evaluate past experiences; and to plan the 'action steps' toward Specific,  Measureable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely goals. Ultimately, the outcome will be academic achievement, but students must first find motivation to achieve.  

     In one-to-one sessions my work with students revolves around modeling for them specific self-regulatory strategies: planning, goal setting, reflecting on feedback and evaluating outcomes. This work is slow in the beginning, but it does yield success when students begin to experience success toward their goals.  One way to train students in a classroom of 30 is to use an index card tracking system. At the beginning of a unit, quarter, semester, or year...ask students to reflect on past performances in your subject: what worked, what didn't work, and what they could do differently this unit, quarter, semester, year.  Then, ask them to write a goal (for the unit, quarter, semester, year) on an index card along with 3 action steps that will help them achieve their goal, and 1 to 3 things that could stop them.  Collect the cards and use them each time you hand back a graded work. At these times, as students to fill out the back of the card. This is a feedback process to train student to monitor and evaluate their progress toward the goal.  

    This process of belief retraining toward academic achievement has been researched and shown to effectively predict positive achievement outcomes. (Zimmerman 2000, Hofer 2007, Alexander 2011, Muis 2112)

front of index card

back of index card

   

Using Intentional Conceptual Change to enhance Self-regulated learning for Academic Performance

     Working with students often labeled as 'lazy,' 'unmotivated,' and/or 'learned helplesss,'  two things have become evident for me... One, students do not want to fail, but in the face of constant difficulty they 'give up.' And two, if a history of failure exists it is accompanied with the self-theory of "I'm  'dumb' and no amount of effort will change the inevitable failure I experience."  If you ask any teacher about student who seem unmotivated or exhibit 'learned helplessness' behaviors they will speak volumes about how difficult it is to work with these students.  These are the unprepared students. The ones whose homework is either missing or incomplete, whose projects show minimal effort, and who often attribute their failure to the difficulty of the task rather than on their own lack of effort.  Assisting these students is frustrating work because they often possess a set of beliefs about learning and themselves as learners that demand time and effort a classroom teacher cannot afford.

     What does it take to turn these kids around? I've discovered a 4 step plan targeted at helping them find their motivation for learning...Research on self-regulated learning for academic performance offers several aspects of a learner's profile to examine and is included in the plan: self-efficacy, motivation resources, goal setting, and self-reflection/evaluation. However, before starting the arduous process of changing established learning behaviors, one has to help students understand who they are as learners and what they believe learning entails. Intentional conceptual change is a fairly new concept that emphasizes direct instruction for helping students recognize and change the reasons they give for their failures. The beliefs students hold about their ability and their conception of intelligence as either fixed (can't change how smart you are) or malleable (intelligence is constructed and learned) frames their goal orientation which shapes learning behavior patterns that may or may not be beneficial. In other words, the reasons they give for their performance matters! If a student puts the blame for a bad grade on the teacher, their ability or the difficulty of the task, they will take no ownership because they do not think they are in control. Conversely, a student who attributes failure to lack of effort, a controllable factor, is more likely to make the necessary adjustments to avoid failure in the future.

     The plan that has worked for me when helping students find and sustain motivation includes helping students to: 1) compare prior learning behaviors to performance outcomes in order to identify the adaptive behaviors they should keep and maladaptive behaviors they should discard; 2) helping students to set specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely goals that motivate them to keep working in the face of difficulties;  3) helping students to establish a monitoring systems to sustain learning behaviors toward the goals, and finally 4) helping students to self-reflect on the progress and if necessary revise goal and/or learning strategies.

The program is simple, but is initially time consuming. It begins with a metacognitive activity to learn who they are as learners (their implicit theories about intelligence) and what it takes to learn.

Figure 1: Understanding how beliefs about learning shape learning behaviors

Step 1) Revising beliefs about how they got to where they are: a survey and interview design.
In a one-to-one interview students discuss successful school performance and unsuccessful school performance with a focus on the learning behaviors that contributed to previous success (ability, effort, study strategies, teacher, easy subject) or unsuccessful (lack of ability, homework, help-seeking, etc.)   performance. The survey (figure 1 formsite.com) is an effective way to gather information for the one-to one interview.This information is helpful in formulating the goals in step two of the program: setting goal.

Figure 2: Setting goals

Step 2) Goal setting allows students to recognize and be cognizant of learning behaviors and is crucial in helping students become self-regulated learners, adaptive, persistent and cognizant of their learning. Goals help keep students motivated with a tangible understanding of what the day-to-day effort will yield in the long term. The learning goals set will  direct the learning patterns during class time, homework time, study time. Two types of goals direct learning behaviors: performance and mastery goals. Both goals are valid and can yield positive results. However, research shows that students who value the 'grade' over 'learning' are less likely to persist in the face of difficulty. Performance goal oriented students with a low assessment of their ability  display low effort, weak learning strategies, low motivation, and are generally the low achievers (Dweck & Leggett, 1998).  Step two in the Intentional conceptual change program is to set a long term goal for academic success (the grade desired) with two or more mastery goals (proximal goals) that can be used to monitor attainment of the 'long-term goal.'  (figure 2)

     Step 3) Monitoring the progress toward attainment of the 'performance goal' (the grade) using mastery goals (improving ability) is important in ensuring students stay motivated. The use of agendas and 'check-ins' has proven invaluable in helping students sustain motivation. Organizational tools such as agendas or electronic diaries help students keep track of tasks and make positive time-management decisions. Feedback in this step is important!  I use an electronic diary along with student agendas to help them plan out their week.  Recognizing patterns in one's approach is essential for implementing Step 4.
   
     In step 4, students evaluate their performance. They keep the strategies that are working and change those that are not. Essential in this step is the ability to effectively assess the academic behaviors that produced success or failures. Here is where the student compares the effort to the goal set in step 1.

     The research in Self-regulated learning supports this approach (Zimmerman 2000). When students set goals and use them to gauge their progress they are taking a more agentic role in their learning. Self-regulated learners are proactive, self-directed, and self-determined.