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

[Jessica Orr]

Ian,

It is amazing to me how students’ self-efficacy can be increased by the
manner in which teachers and other adults interact with them. In your first
paragraph, you discussed how your principal and some of your colleagues
react differently to “bad” students. When the principal shows he believes
in them, the students are likely to have increased self-efficacy and, as a
result, their behaviors will improve. On the other hand, when some teachers
react poorly toward those students, the students’ self-efficacy is lowered,
and it is likely that the negative behavior will persist.

In my class, one particular student clearly displayed this phenomenon. When
I had the student as a freshman, he was suspended for using profanity
toward me; as one may imagine, as a young student teacher, I did not show
the student that I cared for him at all upon his return. As a result, he
repeatedly kept his head down in class and refused to complete any
assignments. I reinforced his low self-efficacy, and his low performance in
my classroom was a result of it. The following year, my first year in my
own classroom, I had the same student as a sophomore. After investigating
his home situation, my empathy for him grew, and we were able to build a
positive relationship. One week, I offered him the reward of a free drink
from the “Cavalier Cafe” if he made it to my class all five days without
skipping (a rarity for this student). Throughout the week, I verbally
encouraged him, as did his peers. As Friday neared, I could see his
self-efficacy increasing, simply because he had the support of those around
him. I am thankful that I was able to see past this student’s previous
behavior and realize that, as an adult, I can truly impact the
self-efficacy of students around me.


On Thu, Jun 21, 2018 at 11:45 AM, Ian Snyder <isnyder at minfordfalcons.net>
wrote:

>             Self-efficacy and collective-efficacy can greatly impact the
> environment of a school. Both of which I see present in my school district.
>
>             The principal in my building is a prime example of
> self-efficacy. As an administrator he does not look to target the “bad”
> kids and put the label on their back that ultimately dictates their overall
> behavior. Instead, he looks for the positive and tries to build a
> relationship with the students that tend to have behavioral issues so that
> the students get the feeling that they belong and that they can play a
> positive role in the classroom. My principal uses effective behaviors and
> actions to attempt to gain a positive outcome from the students. On the
> other end of the spectrum there are a couple teachers in the hallway that I
> work down that basically shun students from their classroom so that they do
> not have to deal with their actions and act like nothing is wrong. The
> teacher across the hall from me generally knows a student will be late for
> class because his locker is down a separate hallway. The teacher will close
> her door and lock it and tell the student that he needs to go to the office
> to get a tardy pass, that are only used at the beginning of school, so that
> he will be another 5-10 minutes late for class. So now that the student is
> late, he now has to be even more late, disrupt the class, and makes the
> secretary have to fill out a tardy slip.
>
>             When I think of collective efficacy I think of our 7thgrade
> team. I have sat in on a few of their team meetings and the collaboration
> and positive goal setting for the grade level and individual students shows
> their will power and desire to leave an impact on the students’ lives. The
> opposite of this is the 6thgrade team. This is the team that I take part
> the most in and the teachers that are involved skip the meetings or always
> have plans right after school so that they cannot be present for the
> meeting (even though they are “required” to be there 30 minutes after the
> students leave). I can tell how not working as a team has a negative impact
> on the students because the teachers do not have a common goal to achieve
> the needs for many of the students.
>
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>


-- 
Thank you,

*Jessica Orr*
English Teacher
Department Coordinator
Chillicothe High School
Phone: (740) 702-2287, ext. 16231

"You don't write because you want to say something, you write because you
have something to say."
       --F. Scott Fitzgerald
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