To understand the motivation to learn, we must first understand what learning is, what motivation is, and how to foster both. Learning is a process of gaining new insight or knowledge through experiences. Some of those experiences are hands on, and some are acquired through formal education. …

Institutional racism has been an issue in schools since they first admitted non-white students in classrooms. The focus of this blog is specifically related to Native American students. As a Native American I have experienced racism, overt and covert. …

Today’s blog is my take-away from reading a 2010 article by Bernard Weiner. The article is called “The Development of an Attribution-Based Theory of Motivation: A History of Ideas” and as I read it, I began to connect this article to my own life and my beliefs and understanding of…

Here we go, with Blog #2 for my Motivation in Education Course. We have been looking at intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation is when someone is motivated to do something because of internal reasons such as curiosity, personal interest, or other “feel good” reasons. This type of motivation…

Today I am exploring the connection between things I read about in my “Motivation in Education” course and “real life”. One of the biggest messages/connections I got out of it, is that personal motivation is affected by culture and personality. There was a lot of information about underachievers, and about…

Nature based learning is a holistic approach to education. This approach focuses on physical well-being, both cognitive and mental/spiritual well-being, and healthy interaction with the environment. Learning is hindered when students are stressed, tired, or experiencing negative emotions. Physical activity reduces boredom, strengthens bones and muscles, reduces anxiety and stress…

The purpose of this blog is to inform anyone who is interested about assessments the importance of alignment between assessments and instruction. This blog will also touch a bit on how to improve assessments, which should be helpful to home-school parents as well as teachers. Alignment What your assessment tells…

The purpose of this blog is to enlighten anyone who is interested about the concept of ungrading, and to cause readers to think about the grading system in education. Grading I do not know who invented letter grades, or why the majority agreed that education should be an extrinsically rewarding…

The purpose of this blog is to inform anyone who is interested, what these terms mean. I have been babbling about assessments for a while, so you pretty much know what those are, but what are these three categories? Let us take a look. Summative Assessment The name is a…