Mrs Church Observation

Motivation is a key element for teachers and students to help promote behavior, attitude and success in academics. While observing Mrs. Church’s second-grade classroom at Reese Elementary, which is a very tiny town, I noticed she intertwines motivation within her teaching ethics. She also uses motivation with the students to help them do well and keep the student engaged in the subject being taught. The second-grade class consists of twenty-seven students, both boys, and girls that range from ages seven to eight. In the classroom, the students are taught the concepts of writing, spelling, reading and math. Mrs. Church does hands-on learning, paper assignments, reading assignments, quizzes, and test to teach and evaluate subject matter in the classroom. Through person-centered, subject matter, and reinforcement Mrs. Church applies the
seven “TARGET” principles of motivation which boost students’ motivation in a classroom setting as Jeanne Ellis Ormrod (2014) explains in her book Educational Psychology Developing Learners.
Ormrod (2014) states the seven principles of motivation include task, autonomy, recognition, grouping, evaluation, time and support. During my observation, I noticed these principles on motivation are used in Mrs. Church’s classroom, which helps to motivate the students and makes them eager to learn. Which the tactics that Mrs. Church uses seem to work well with her students, and her students seemed to be excited to learn and willing to answer questions when asked and ready to participate in classroom activities and discussions.
Task is the first principle of motivation that Ormrod (2014) explains in the book.
Which Mrs. Church does numerous amounts of hands-on learning with the second-grade students to get the students engaged in the learning process. She also uses lifelike examples with the hands-on learning. For example, Mrs. Church has the students use play money to learn how to count money. The teacher asks the students questions such as: if the students are going to the store to buy a candy bar for 89 cents, what is one way you can make 89 cents with the play money that you have? This example presents a real situation that the students can relate to, which keeps the students motivated to want to learn more. With the students learning the concept of counting money in this way, they are more apt to want to be motivated to take what they learn home with them and use what they learn next time the students go to the store. Ormrod (2014) claims that tasks in a class impacts motivation, which the topic of the task should be interesting to the students and relate to the students live which help keep the students engage, just as Mrs. Church does with her
students.
Mrs. Church lets the students have input on some of the decision makings, such as what book they will read as a class, or what activity the students want to engage in during the refresh your brain time. The refresh your brain time is the time when the class takes a break from learning; Mrs. Church gives the students a choice of watching a PBS cartoon such as Franklin or the choice of being active by dancing to Go Noodle or Just dance, for this break. The example above is one-way autonomy is used in the classroom. Autonomy is another principle of motivation, which Ormrod (2014) explains that autonomy can be applied in a classroom by letting the students take control by having them make choices. The choices that Mrs. Church allows the student make are not huge but significant to a second-grader because it makes the students feel like they have a say in what happens in the classroom, and it also helps the students enjoy the activities or the book they read as a class. The students seem to get excited when they have the ability to make choices.