[Ous-lp-rp13] EDAD 6020, Response to Question #3

[Ian Snyder]

Nicholas, I love your desire to build and grow your band program. I enjoyed
your comments about how it's crazy the support you receive when you start
to succeed. I encountered a similar situation the past year with my
basketball team. As the season progressed and our winning streak continued
the community started offering to contribute to the team and the stands
started to fill up so that everybody could say that they were apart of the
success that we were having. As a coach, they were apart of our success and
I'm sure you could say the same thing. As more people buy into the program
and contribute their part the chance for success increases. I believe the
same goes for the classroom. As the parents buy into what the teachers and
administrators are doing the students will begin to buy in and change their
perspective on the learning process.



Nicholas,


This singular topic is something I feel quite strongly about. I would put
self-efficacy and collective efficacy in the top 4 elements of a successful
school.

I see the effects plainly in teachers at my school. That awful teacher I
wrote about before, has the self-efficacy of Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh!
She believes everything is not her fault; her locus of control is so much
external it took a Greyhound 25 years ago and has not been seen since. On
the flip side, we have a marvelous 4th grade teacher who spends tremendous
amounts of time creating tailored lessons for individual kids because she
has taken a personal ownership of their learning. Both of those examples
are to say, if you believe you can make a difference, your locus of control
is internal and you are much more likely and willing to take ownership of
______.

Similarly, perceived collective efficacy greatly impacts effort and
achievement. I see this very much in the concert bands I conduct. After we
qualified for State for the first time in district history, and every other
county school did not, the amount of practicing that happened easily
tripled in the following weeks! The students thought, “I am part of an
elite group here” and then stepped up to their own perception. Through
anecdotal evidence, I believe that the greater the students believe the
group to be, the more effort they are willing to put in to maintain
membership. Conversely, when perceived collective efficacy is low, even
when self-efficacy is high, morale takes a hit. And when morale is low,
motivation, and achievement suffer.

I would also like to draw attention to perceived collective efficacy from
an outside perspective. I have seen great benefits to my band program when
people not in the program believe the program is succeeding. Money flows
more easily from the district office, student attendance at concerts
increases (because parents actually take them), pride increases. Political,
I know, but I thought it worth a mention.
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