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

[danielle.ramage]

Tony,I love that you said, "I am able to keep a high sense of self-efficacy by remembering that I will always be able to improve on my craft." I totally agree! I am very much in the mindset to always work to improve. Growing up (and even now as an advisor) I was an active member in our county 4H program. The 4H motto is "To Make the Best Better" . This is really engrained in me and I try to take this into the classroom with me. I like to think that me having strong self efficacy would be somewhat contagious to my students. I understand when you say that you start each year with student low self efficacy just because its math. I was one those students. Carried a C average through most high school math classes. Now, as a teacher, I can see how my class' collective self efficacy could have been disheartening to my teachers. I encourage you to continue to fight along with your students to find small victories in their math. Maybe they can even record their victories somewhere so when they need a dose of encouragement they can look at their list of accomplishments to do some self reflecting ?!?!  I enjoy reading your responses. Thanks for being so open.
:) Danielle
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-------- Original message --------From: Anthony Gillman <gl_agillman at seovec.org> Date: 6/22/18  12:18 AM  (GMT-05:00) To: ous-lp-rp13 at listserv.ohio.edu Subject: [Ous-lp-rp13] EDAD 6020, Answer to Question # 3 
The fact that I teach high school geometry will should immediately clue most of you in to how I will begin to answer the question about the manner in which self-efficacy and collective efficacy exist in my school.  I began this past school year much like I have in the past years by asking students to raise their hand if they normally struggle or haven’t been successful in past math classes.  Not including the honors course that I teach, I had approximately 80-90% of my students to raise their hand.  As you can imagine, this sets up a bit of a challenge when it comes to successful results.  I believe this to be an example of both self-efficacy and collective efficacy.  Unfortunately this group of students is not an exception to the norm.  This most definitely affects the math department (teachers) as a whole and usually finds its way into many of our conversations.  Personally, I understand that this is an absolute external force that comes into play, but try to remain steadfast in my journey to be an effective teacher for all my students.  I am able to keep a high sense of self-efficacy by remembering that I will always be able to improve on my craft.
Another example would be many of our athletic programs.  We have developed a culture of expecting to lose and seems evident when watching the students compete.  There are many times when the students showcase their ability to equally compete or even outperform their opponents, but when the momentum shifts to the other team we find it difficult to fight through the moment and end up accepting mentally that the loss is inevitable.  You can usually see it in their change in play as well as on their faces.  This is not for every sport, but many of them fall into this scenario.
On a more positive note, our school has developed a high sense of collective efficacy when it comes to going the extra mile for students.  As an organization, most of us have a belief that are school focuses on student needs especially when their basic needs are not being met out of school.  This type of belief has a positive effect for our staff’s intrinsic motivation to keep doing a good job no matter the academic deficiencies we may encounter.


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Happiness is a proper balance of preparation and recreation.

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