Think about your own self efficacy as a learner. In which subject, if any, in your academic background have you judged yourself unable to succeed? How has low self-efficacy effected your academic performance? How does self efficacy effect your students reading?
As a student the subject that I struggled with the most was chemistry. I always felt like I had to really work harder than other students in the class to succeed. I felt like I was three steps behind everyone else and I was afraid to speak out in class, because I didn’t think I understood anything as well as all the other students. By the time I took chemistry I was older and had been a successful student for a long time.
ReplyDeleteMy first grade students come into my class with such varying degrees of abilities in reading. The students that struggle the most are so vulnerable and it is so easy for them to get discouraged. That is why it is so important that I let them know that I expect them to be successful and that I know they will become good readers. Keeping that positive attitude with my struggling readers and pointing out their progress makes a difference. I am fortunate that I work in a school that gives the most struggling readers the opportunity to participate in Reading Recovery, where they work with a reading teacher one-on-one every day and get the help they need to learn to read.
Similar to Terri, a subject in my academic background I judged myself as unable to succeed in was the subject of science in general. Any aspect of science was always difficult, complex, and confusing to me. No matter how hard I would study I never seemed to succeed in the classroom. The concepts just did not seem to connect the way they did for many of my peers. The lack of self efficacy I had for myself in this particular subject definitely had affects on my academic performance. I became disconnected and uninterested in science. The subject came as more of a chore then a place for success. I was no longer trying to succeed, just more or less trying to get by. My confidence and interest in the subject matter was nonexistent. Being older, I now know and can see the affect this attitude had on my future. I geared away from professions and courses in which science was involved for the fear of disappointment. I encountered many missed opportunities due to my self-efficacy towards the subject, and would never want that for any other student.
ReplyDeleteTherefore, the affects that self efficacy has on a students’ reading is quite clear to me. For that was me, just in the subject of science instead of reading. If a student has no confidence or lacks success in their ability to read or comprehend, they become unengaged and uninterested in reading. I have seen my students’ struggle in areas of reading and I have seen the disconnect they begin to experience. However when these struggles are seen, I begin to redirect my instruction to a level in which I know the student can succeed. Allowing students’ to succeed and praising them for their accomplishments, gives them the drive to continue succeeding. I have witnessed it with many of my students. Currently, I have a student with an IEP in reading. A major factor in her abilities is her lack of confidence. It is important for the special education teacher, my mentor, and I to rebuild that confidence. We designed her reading program to be geared more towards her level and provide her with activities in which she will experience success. Just recently, she was given a spelling test and received an “A.” She was overjoyed to share her success with all of us. We provided her with a lot of praise, and later in the day she wanted to begin studying the next list of words that were a little bit harder. The success she endured on that test gave her the drive to continue learning. Overall, it is critical for students to experience success in all subject areas, and it is important for teachers to allow self efficacy to occur in the classroom.
Self-efficacy, or one’s beliefs in his or her own abilities, plays a key role in how students approach learning. As a learner, I have a negative sense of self-efficacy in the area of math. Throughout grade school and middle school, math was something that I had to work hard at. When I entered high school, I was placed in a “high-track” math class. The math class that I took at the beginning of high school was extremely difficult. I felt as if the teacher was speaking a foreign language. Success was not a something that I ever felt in math. From that year on I avoided math at all costs. I dropped out of the “high-track” math class and took the bare minimum that was required for the remainder of my high school career. Just as Colleen expressed, I did not care about succeeding in math anymore. I just wanted to get through it as painlessly as possible. When it came time for me to choose a major in college, I did so with my negative sense of self-efficacy in mind. I was originally interested in the medical field but assumed that I would not succeed because of the amount of math that I would have to take. Luckily, I discovered what I truly wanted to do shortly after I entered college. This sense of negative self-efficacy has affected my confidence and willingness to succeed in this subject tremendously.
ReplyDeleteIt is crucial that positive self-efficacy be fostered in all students. The classroom that I am currently co-teaching in is an academically low-performing class. My mentor teacher and I strive to build the academic confidence of our students. For the most part, the students are confident in their capabilities. Although many of the students demonstrate positive self-efficacy, I can see that some of them have low self-efficacy in the area of reading. One of my students who receives special education instruction in the area of reading gets very discouraged when it comes to reading tasks. He expresses the notion that he is a “bad” reader and is constantly bringing up work in all content areas to have it read to him. Although he has the tools to be an efficient reader, he does not have the self-efficacy that is needed to benefit his academic performance. I also have five students who receive Title 1 reading instruction. Their negative sense of self-efficacy greatly impacts their successes and willingness in reading. My mentor teacher and I strive to build positive self-efficacy with the low-performing students as well as all of the students within the class. We do this by differentiating instruction and setting the students up to feel successful. Since the beginning of the year I have seen a great change in these students’ self-efficacy. They seem to be much more confident readers. They take joy in their successes and acknowledge the fact that they can be successful. It is crucial to keep students’ attitudes about their academic endeavors positive.
Through out my school years there have been many subjects to which I have succeeded. There have also been many subjects that I have struggled with. One subject I have felt like I could never succeed in was Chemistry. Just like Terri stated I also felt as if I had to work so much harder to succeed at this subject. Chemistry contains a lot of Mathematics but that was not my problem. Math came easy to me. It was more the unknown that I had trouble comprehending. I could get the simple concepts but one we had to start mixing chemicals and talking about chemical reactions I was lost. I am not sure why I was not able to grasp these theories. My teacher was one of the best one I could have had for this subject. He took a lot of time out his personal time to spend with not only me but other students. This time would be spent working on the concepts we could not understand. It took me a lot of time and more effort than I should have put into the class to receive my “B”.
ReplyDeleteIt depends on a person’s determination as to how high of self-efficacy they achieve. If people have a good and high determination they will be more likely to succeed. I don’t believe that low self- efficacy has affected my academic performance. I am an overall positive person and I will not allow any challenge to overtake me. It is because of my family and a teacher that I have been taught determination, which I think has contributed to my academic performance.
According to the article it stated that teachers need to use different methods to teach their students phonemic awareness. By teaching phonemic awareness a teacher is bound to reach the students academic thinking. Students who are able to manipulate phonemes are more likely to improve their reading (U.S. Department of Health and human Services.) By teaching students phonemic awareness the teacher is giving them the tools that they will need to succeed at not only reading in general but the smaller components within reading. Components such as spelling, sounding out of words, and decoding unfamiliar words are touched on within phonemic awareness. By giving students the materials to succeed they are more likely to want to complete their assignments correctly as to just completing them. Many teachers set their students up to succeed within the classroom and one way to set them up to succeed in reading is by teaching them phonemic awareness to enhance their reading capabilities.
The subject that I have always struggled with has been math. Ever since I started school I havent like math. I would do all of my homework and re-read the chapter and still struggle with this subject. I also was a timid student that didnt want to speak out and ask questions. Most students in the class I felt did not struggle as I did. I knew several students that didnt study for tests and did much better than I did, this gave me a sense of well I am just not smart enough to do well in this subject. By the time I was in high school I didnt like math and I didnt understand how many of the lessons were going to apply to the real world. My sense of low self efficancy gained me a C in all my math classes and I was happy with that. I have been teaching in a first grade classroom this semester and the students that have trouble reading have the same feelings that I do with math, they just want to give up. I try and help the students before they get to this point so they dont get discouraged and I give them compliments such as I know you can do it, Your doing good, the students love it and keep trying to do better. The students that are really far behind we also have a reading teacher that comes and takes the students out for group work and that is nice.
ReplyDeleteThroughout my schooling I have exceeded in all subjects except when it comes to grammar and sentence structure. As a future teacher I look back and wonder how I even made it through school with so little knowledge when it comes to prepositional phrases, adjectives, and comas. Throughout my schooling I have struggled greatly when it comes to these things. I guess when it came to tests I was just able to memorize the material and I would quickly forget it afterwards. Still to this day if it was not for Microsoft Word and other programs I would not be able to recognize some of my errors. As a student this has affected me a great deal because I have never felt confident when it comes to those areas. Although, as a future teacher this has helped me to watch for students that may be A students and struggling with a single subject. As a future teacher this has helped me to realize that having positive self efficacy is essential when it comes to students and their learning. I feel that as a future teacher it is essential for me to promote the students having a postive attitude toward their learning and help them to realize the importance of their learning. If the students feel something is important, then they will most likely apply themselves towards that subject. I do not only think the Matthew effect is true when it comes to reading, but I also believe that it could be true with any other subject, for example, my deficits today when it comes to grammar. Overall, positive self efficacy is essential in the classroom because the students parents may not be promoting the positive attitudes about learning and it is the teacher's job to make a difference.
ReplyDeleteLooking back on my elementary school days, I thrived on my self efficacy as a learner. I think I received a lot of positive feedback from my grades and felt capable of figuring out how to get an A on any assignment. I was one of those worksheet kids that loved any opportunity to fill in a blank because I knew that I could figure out the right answers. Unfortunately, this didn’t work for me throughout my entire school career. There came a few points where I really had to do some thinking and put in some long study hours for concepts that weren’t quite so clear to me. I was always pretty good at math until I took Geometry my freshman year. It was unlike anything I had ever taken, and I couldn’t rely on my previous math knowledge to get me through. I became frustrated and tired of staying up late at night and going to school early for help and still not being able to get an A. After a while, I just told myself that I wasn’t good at geometry and accepted B work. I put a lot of blame on my teacher and the fact that my mind wasn’t wired for geometry, but looking back, I think I could have been more successful in the class. As I continued through high school and moved beyond Geometry, my confidence in my math abilities improved. It was actually during Pre-Calculus my junior year that I first began feeling pride in my math accomplishments. My teacher had the somewhat inappropriate routine of listing the top 5 people in the class after every test, and he often made the comment that boys were better than girls based on math scores. So I made it my goal to prove him wrong. And that’s when I realized that getting great grades in math is completely attainable if you work at it.
ReplyDeleteIf a student does not receive positive feedback while reading, they will begin to dislike the subject and make up excuses just as I did with Geometry. For this reason, students should be given many opportunities throughout the day to find success. I see how meaningful this is to my reading group which consists of the lowest 1st graders. During that 30 minute period, we use Words Their Way and work at their level so they can get the skills they need and gain the confidence to move on. They also have time to read books that are on their level and sometimes even books that are a little too easy for them, simply because they are proud to be able to read them so well. I can’t tell you how many times I have listened to Sam and Jack and Pig Digs, but it is so worth it to see their smile when they finish the book all by themselves. That is important. Especially in 1st grade, a teacher should allow each child to accomplish goals and feel pride in their learning so that they will have the chance to continue succeeding throughout the rest of their schooling rather than resenting it from the start.
Throughout my school years I have been blessed by not having many difficulties in my classes. I have always had an easy time in my classes. Once I hit my junior year of high school things started to change. Mathematics has always been a subject that I don’t necessarily like to do but I have always earned good grades in this subject despite my dislike. When I began my algebra 2 class I began to struggle. The beginning of my semester I had a hard time with the work. I was very down on my self and didn’t know how to handle something that I couldn’t do. I had never came across this in my schoolwork and it took my by surprise. I had to work extremely hard to pull off my grade in the class. It taught me something about school. Things had always come pretty easy to me and that was the first class that I really had to make a major effort to get the grade that I wanted. I have always prided myself on my good grades and I didn’t want this class to hurt that. It felt good in the end to know that I worked really hard to get something that I wanted and it showed me that I can do anything.
ReplyDeleteSelf-efficacy is something that all student need to have and need to build for themselves. They have to want to learn and want to do a good job. This is something that is very important. I want all of my students to want to learn and take pride in their reading. It always helps for a teacher to help foster self-efficacy. This way you can help students get through things before they get frustrated.
I instantly think of math, when it comes to thinking of a subject that I did not think I could succeed in. Math is a constant struggle for me. All throughout school I hated math, particularly, Geometry. I just could not get proofs, for the life of me. I have to work extremely hard when I do math in order to succeed, however, with Geometry, no matter how hard I tried, I just felt as if I would never understand or get good grades. As Colleen said, I just tried to get by as well. Let me tell you, I barely scraped by.
ReplyDeleteSelf-efficacy affects students greatly when it comes to reading. If a student does not like to read or struggles in reading, they won’t attempt to enjoy and understand reading. They become unenthusiastic about learning to read or to see the value in reading because they are struggling. I, as a future teacher, need to provide encouragement and praise to my students to show that they can read and that reading can be fun. If students are struggling, I can provide instruction to help them succeed. I understand those who struggle in reading have a lack of confidence, because I did when it came to math. However, I see now the importance it is to express excitement and enjoyment of a subject to my students, so they can see that they can succeed as well.
Throughout my school career I have had many successes, but one field that I have had many struggles in is science and more specifically, biology. I had achieved many things in Jr.High; I was always on the honor roll and received "straight a's." The high school was larger and was a whole new world. I took biology my first year and also got my first "b." This was a big deal at the time and very much affected my self-efficacy. When I revisited biology my first year in college, I had very low confidence and at the end of the semester received my first "c." At this point I had not declared a major. I was focusing on two paths, one being teaching and the other being a pysicians assistant. Because of my grades in these biology courses, I made my decision that teaching was better for me. I feel like I definately made the right decision now, but at the time I made it strictly based on my past performances.
ReplyDeleteMy struggles in those classes has made me take more of an interest in my science classes that I am currently taking, because I want to find a way to peak my students' interests in all subject areas. Science was always a burden to me. Even when I was receiving good grades at lower levels, it was boring and uninteresting. I think this negative attitude I had as a young learner contributed to my struggles and low self-confidence in these areas.
As a future special educator, I know that the majority of students with learning disabilities have disabilities with reading. Reading is the subject that is spread across all subject areas without having to work to incorporate it into the other lessons. Children must read their homework, must read their textbooks, must read their assignments, etc. Because of this, we need to find ways to make reading more interesting and successful for our students. As Colleen said previously, we must give our students work at which we know they have a better chance to succeed. This is the first step to improving their self-efficacy is to prove to them that they "can do it!" After we have peaked their interest and given them a chance to become excited about their learning, then we slowly increase the difficulty in the problems/assignments. Positive self-efficacy is essential for a students success, therefore it must be a priority of ours to ensure that our students believe in themselves!
In my academic background I judged myself unable to succeed when I came to SIU for the Radiological Science program. Being a radiological technician was something that I wanted to do while in high school and I decided to attend SIU because this major was offered. Once I got to SIU and began speaking with people who were in the program I felt intimidated. I felt that I would not be capable of succeeding in that major because of the people that constantly complained about how hard the material was to study. I gave up radiological science before I even began taking classes for the major because I was afraid of disappointing myself and other people. I switched majors and attempted to get into the TEP program and was told that this program was difficult because there were so many tests to take and at some point I said that I would have to stop running and decided to go through with the TEP program. Having low self efficacy has affected my performance as a student tremendously with the radiological science program because I did not try to start the program and I believe that this is because of all of the bad things that I heard about the program as well as my past low performances in math and science. I believe the main reason for quitting this program came from my thoughts of not being able to succeed in the math and science areas for this major.
ReplyDeleteFrom experience in a class with low level readers I believe that low self efficacy would affect my student’s performance because they may feel as though it is pointless to try to become great readers if they already feel like they are failures. I believe that it would be the job of the teachers and parents to motivate the students to do their best by praising them verbally and nonverbally. If struggling readers feel as though they are capable of becoming great readers they will want to read more, and If they feel as though they are not great at reading and that things will never get better for them they may not try to better themselves. I believe that teachers must be taught the appropriate way to teach students how to read and they must use strategies that are going to assist in the student’s success of becoming fluent readers. The article stressed the importance of vocabulary instruction and comprehension and I totally agree with this information because it is one thing for a student to be able to read a sentence, but it is another for a student to be able to read a sentence and understand what they have read. Having vocabulary as one of the main focuses within my classroom setting was great for students because they got to understand what certain words meant and then they got to read a story that consisted of the words. This seemed to help students with becoming better readers.
It’ not hard for me at all to think back on my elementary school days, even though it has been many years ago. Unlike many of my fellow classmates, math was always a strong subject for me. However, reading was my downfall. It wasn’t that I didn’t have access to books; I just didn’t like to read. I would find myself reading words and not really focusing on what they meant or what the author was trying to say. I would start to read and by the third or fourth line my mind would wander off to the cute boy sitting next to me or what I was going to do when I got home. I would’ve much rather sat down and did algebra problems all day long than to read a book. It was such a struggle for me that I even received a D in the 8th grade on my report card in Reading. I was horrified, since I was a good student; I just knew that I would never make it through high school because I didn’t like to read books. In high school I always had good grades, however, I was placed in a supplemental reading class because of my lacking grades in elementary school. I spent my freshman year in that class and the rest of my high school career I had worked my way out of it. My grades improved throughout high school in English but I can absolutely relate to how children feel when it comes to reading. As I take my certification tests, my weak areas are still in reading comprehension. Do I blame my parents or my teachers, absolutely not, but I think it is a lesson learned as a future teacher of how important it is for students to build confidence in reading. Once a student has the negative image of something it’s hard to break that cycle, so it’s important to help students become comfortable with reading and build self-confidence. It is also important to show praise and encouragement. I think that the reading programs currently in place in many schools is helpful to most students and it helps not let so many students slip through the cracks like it did when I was in school.
ReplyDeleteThe area I’ve had terminal difficulties in is exactly what I’m doing right now. Expository, non-fiction writing. You name it, book reports in grade school, essays in high school, article summaries in college. If its non-fiction, meaning that I have to stick to facts, formats, etc. forget it. Give me a topic that I have to write about and a page limit that I’m bound to and I’ll blow both of them. I could turn a single page assignment into a 7 page treatment like that. If it hasn’t become apparent to everyone by now, my problem lies in my overactive use of descriptive vocabulary. I tend to write with lots of flair. While in my defense I like to think that it makes my style more interesting to read, at the same time I often end up going WAY off topic. This makes it hard to stay focused on the objective of the assignment. I usually end up saying a lot of things about a lot of things; just not on what I was supposed to be writing. I have had a few teachers who recognized my extensive writing as something positive, but for the most part, since my compositions tended to wander off topic, I didn’t receive very good grades on them.
ReplyDeleteThroughout junior high and high school (and for the 1st part of my college career) I did lots of expository and persuasive writing. Sometimes I would attempt to “liven” what I thought were merely a dry recounting of facts, events and such. And every time I would get an assignment back with red marks on it I would know that I tried too hard, went beyond what the assignment (teacher) called for. Eventually I began to hate and fear non-fiction composition. I would put off an assignment until the last minute, then scramble to throw something together at the day before it was due. Naturally this didn’t help my grades much either.
Ironically, it wasn’t much later in my college career that I started working in the operant lab with the Behavior Analysis guys. I started reading a lot of journal articles on the subject and quickly became interested in it. In the science of behavior we are taught to speak and write with technical precision. After a while I noticed that I had started speaking and writing with this same degree of precision. Soon I noticed that my expository writing seemed to have a little better focus and accuracy. In short, I told the story, clearly, precisely, to the point. Looking back on it now I think I learned to overcome some of my fear of non-fictional writing because I was now writing technically precise because I wanted to, not because the teacher told me to. At least now I see the purpose of leaving out the flora and fauna in non-fiction texts. Maybe this recognition has helped me be a better writer as well.
With our students, their self-efficacy is also going to be closely tied to their understanding of the purpose for the subject/ topic with which they struggle and how well they can find something about the subject to which they can relate. That is, can they find something personally useful in the topic? My above scenario illustrates that mere exposure to a subject is not enough to bolster student achievement; I was bombarded with opportunities to write non-fiction compositions. Likewise students are surrounded with reading material, assignments, etc. But mere exposure itself isn’t always a guarantee students will come to see themselves as proficient readers. In fact, simple exposure (“because I said so” teaching) may drive students’ performance down. If we scare kids off from reading, how much harder will our jobs be to help them be successful at anything else?
The area of academics that I have struggled with the most has to be in my Art Education classes in both elementary school and throughout high school. I have always thought of myself as one who lacks creativity when it comes to painting and drawing and ceramics, and because of my poor self efficacy I have always counted myself out throughout my school. And even now during school this semester I have to take an Art class for Education Majors and I find it torturous. Most of the time in High School I looked to my teacher far too often for help and never even really was willing to work on things by myself. I am confident in the rest of my studies, but when it comes to Art I put myself below everyone else and just do not enjoy having anything to do with Art Education. Because I have already deemed myself unable to succeed in anything that has to do with Art I have pretty much already set myself up for a struggle. Because of my low self efficacy and belief that I cannot do anything I have created this notion in myself to fail any class or even project that requires creativity at its finest. I can relate this to my students and having poor self efficacy because i myself have experienced it. If my students are struggling reading, while watching their peers around them read fluently, there is a good chance that their self efficacy is not going to be very high. They are going to lack confidence and thus manipulate themselves into believing that they are never going to be able to read. This then causing them to begin not to try in class or even just continuing to pick books that will never improve their reading. We need to improve students self efficacy, by showing them they can do it and giving them the proper support and encouragement that all students require.
ReplyDeleteThis article spends a lot of time addressing the fact that children in poverty tend to read less and have less educational support. I think I am personally an exception to the rule. I never wanted to read, I struggled in reading, my family was dirt poor and I never saw a computer except at school until collage, but somehow I have my BS in education and I am now working on my MS. So I am one of the exceptions that the article talks about. Yet, I do still struggle in reading and spelling. So I agree that it is easier for a child to succeed in reading later if they learn to read earlier. I like the fact that this article discusses the different stages of reading as well as type of assessments for each stage . I feel I am on my way to learning these stages and assessments so that I will be better equip to teach my son and my future student to read.
ReplyDeleteSelf- efficacy is a very prominent figure in education. It is one of the most important characteristics of a learner no matter the age. As a student, I struggled with English. This is a something that I struggle with to this day. I remember when my understanding of English and its many uses swayed to the an uncommon ground. It all started when I transferred from a college preparatory school in Chicago, Illinois to a public school in Chatham, Illinois my sophomore year.
ReplyDeleteThe school in Chatham, Il placed me in an honors English course. In that honors English course I can remember feeling so sub partial to my peers. They were using words that I had no prior exposure to, let alone knowledge of the newly exposed vocabulary. I remember when assignments were given I had little to no clue as to what I was supposed to produce yet I asked no questions in class so that I wouldn't sound “dumb.” I can relate to Terri being that I as well didn't feel comfortable enough to asking questions because I did feel I was behind.
I have always been so self-efficient in all areas before this transition. By my teachers at my previous school, I was deemed an active learner. I was the student that will bring in a picture of an item that we learned about in class the day before. I never felt that a task was too hard for me and would use all resources available to be able to further my knowledge of a subject.
Low efficacy has effected my academic progress in many ways. In high school, I had a negative attitude about English class and would skip English because I didn't want to be the odd ball. I can relate to Kayla B because she mentions that during art she already deemed herself unable to succeed so in turn she dreaded art class even up to the college level. When I arrived to college I was advised by a professor to seek out help with my papers from the Writing Center and I have been going ever since.
There is nothing better than an active learner. Nothing supports a learner better than the learner itself. For that reason, self-efficacy hold a large part of effects in reading. From teachers, children know that they have the ability to read. It is from that push that a child goes through the “Big Five” knowing that they in fact do have the ability to read. As they progress from being a new reader to being a mature reader those acts of self-efficacy enable them the courage and most importantly the will to read.
Spelling has always been the subject I struggled with. I used to judge myself unable to learn spelling and doubted myself as a teacher because of my low expectations for myself. I have now learned that learning and teaching spelling is a process. Low self-efficiency in spelling has helped me to be more motivated to learn spelling. I keep going back to it, because I am motivated by my desire to be a teacher. When I put less work into learning spelling I tend to give up easier, but when I use low self-efficiency I tend to stick with it more because it is less tedious.
ReplyDeleteSelf-efficiency can affect a students reading by keeping them from comprehending what they are learning. If they are doing other things while reading then they are not paying attention to what they are reading. I can not do anything else while I am trying to read because I will not remember anything I read.