unmotivated students catesol to share - schedschd.ws/hosted_files/catesol2015/38/unmotivated...
Post on 03-May-2018
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Introduc,ons – Ki1y is a teacher trainer in the MA TESOL program at Biola University; Ilene teaches at Southlands Chris,an School; Erik teaches at Fairmont Prep. The seJng and the problem. Ki1y: During classes such as Prac,cum and Classroom Research, I began hearing about Erik and Ilene’s unmo,vated students. Erik and Ilene: students who slept in class, didn’t turn in homework, were absent, were late, didn’t want to par,cipate, etc. Ki1y: As as result, I wanted to look more carefully at mo,va,on and get a clearer sense of factors that might be affec,ng these students. It turns out that this year the students are behaving in more mo,vated ways—you’ll see that in our study results. So, maybe our research is moot—but we think it s,ll offers useful ideas.
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Let’s begin with a brief overview of “mo,va,on.” Perhaps you have heard about two types of mo,va,on—integra,ve and instrumental—are students learning to belong in their new culture or are they learning to accomplish some goal
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…or another two—intrinsic and extrinsic. Are the students working for internal reasons, such as the sheer joy of learning, or external rewards, such as gold star, a high grade, or a trophy?
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In fact there are many more complex models of mo,va,on for us to consider now. For the sake of ,me, we’re not going to examine any of them in depth. Instead, we’ll be looking at some elements of some models which have relevance for secondary students.
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Jeremy Harmer describes five elements that can affect mo,va,on. Three are things the school or teacher can control: is there a warm, invi,ng atmosphere that creates good rapport and posi,ve affect? Is the curriculum designed to allow just the right level of challenge so students have a steady sense of achievement? Are the ac,vi,es relevant, interes,ng, and varied? But the students also bring to the table elements that can affect their mo,va,on. Do they have posi,ve aJtudes and do they have a sense of agency, that is, do they believe that their efforts ma1er? We’ll come back to the school/teacher elements at the end, but for now, let’s stay focused on the students.
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For purposes of this research, I chose six areas that help us understand in more depth what students bring to the complex picture of mo,va,on.. Exploring them can help us understand how we might encourage unmo,vated students. Agency – Agency means one’s capacity to make choices, to act, to not just let things happen to you, to be responsible. Benson describes how agency is a “point of origin for the development of autonomy” as well as a star,ng point for learners’ strategic learning efforts (cited in Gao & Zhang, p 27). Obviously, a student who has good learning strategies and is fairly autonomous would be perceived as mo,vated by the teacher. Agency is needed if students are going to exert themselves in a par,cular context. “Failure to recognize the self as agent in controlling thought and thus mo,va,on can lead a learner to become trapped in nega,ve pa1erns of thinking and self-‐percep,ons, with detrimental consequences for their mo,va,on” (Ushioda 2008 cited in Ryan and Mercer). Ryan and Mercer examine learner beliefs that success in language learning comes from “natural talent” or extended periods abroad and the effect these beliefs have on whether students will work hard in a classroom seJng. They conclude by saying that mo,vated learners ”recognize their own agency and [have] beliefs that indicate the power to learn consciously both in formal context through strategic hard work and effort, as well as during stays abroad through ac,ve purposeful behaviour” (p 174).
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Autonomy – Autonomy and mo,va,on are increasingly seen as interrelated, though it’s probably not possible to say which comes first. Benson defines autonomy as “the capacity to take control of one’s own learning” (2001, p. 47). It’s been ,ed to concepts such as self-‐direc,on, freedom, and self-‐access. Obviously, this is closely related to agency. The younger the learner, the less autonomy in terms of content, objec,ves, or methods the are likely to have. However, even young learners can be more or less helpless in terms of managing their learning. Autonomous learners don’t need to have their hands held, be told everything, or showed each step, or monitored all along the way. Huang (2011) did research on Chinese university students and he writes that during their first year the students describe themselves as “having no goal” and “not knowing what to do.” They say that “managing [their] own learning” was difficult arer their previous years of focused study for the university entrance exam and they felt “lost at sea.” Later they develop more autonomy. Any ,me a learner comes to a new context, such as high school in the U,S., there might be a crisis of autonomy. For example, students who are successful here are willing to communicate—that might not have been important in a student’s previous schooling.
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Growth Mindset – I’m sure you’re familiar with Carol Dueck’s work on growth vs fixed mindsets. She says that people who view intelligence as something to be developed tend to embrace challenges, persist in the face of obstacles, see effort as the path to mastery, and learn from cri,cism. Ryan and Mercer (2011) apply Dueck’s model of mo,va,on to language learning. The bo1om line, they say, is that students who believe in the value of hard work or effort will achieve more than those who believe simply in innate talent. “Holding a growth mindset enables learners to become more mo,vated, autonomous and self-‐regulated by seJng more challenging goals, making them more willing to take risks, persist and adapt in the face of difficul,es, and approach study in a purposeful strategic manner” (p. 164).
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Iden5ty – Bonny Norton(2012) has wri1en about the role of iden,ty in mo,va,on. She looks at individual learners in the larger social world. Her research found that “high levels of mo,va,on did not necessarily transfer into good language learning” especially in contexts where there are “unequal rela,ons of power between language learners and target language speakers.” She developed the construct of “investment” to capture how much effort a learner places in the prac,ces of a given classroom or community, something which can only happen if there’s consistency between the learners’ expecta,ons and the teacher’s prac,ces (p. 6). She says that even when others might view an immigrant as “deficient” and “nonna,ve,” the immigrant herself might see herself in terms of iden,,es such as “co-‐worker” or “mother” or “aggrieved tenant.” Ushioda (2011) has also wri1en about iden,ty—and, for the sake of manageability, it’s her construct I chose to use for this research. She contrasts classes where pseudo-‐communica,on occurs, and the emphasis is on prac,cing language versus classes where real communica,on about real lives occurs. She says that teachers should “enable students to exercise…choice in terms of which aspects of their iden,ty they wish to…express.” (p. 17). When classroom prac,ces enable students to “speak as themselves,” mo,va,on will increase.
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Future self – Zoltan Dornyei is the most prolific contemporary researcher in the area of mo,va,on (e.g., Dornyei & Ushioda). He calls his theory the “L2 Mo,va,onal Self System.” One aspect of his system which seemed relevant to understanding our secondary students is the idea of the “future self.” If someone has a powerful ideal future self—for example a student envisions him/herself as a successful businessman or scholar-‐-‐ this self-‐image can have considerable mo,va,onal power” (Dornyei and Hadfiel,d p 2.) The students will want to reduce the gap between their actual and current self and their future self. We are used to coaches telling athletes to imagine themselves running through the finish line first and stepping up to the podium to receive a medal—learners can also imagine themselves succeeding in vivid and realis,c situa,ons.
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Adolescent issues – Finally, I didn’t want to ignore the fact these students are adolescents. They have been sent by their parents to a new country. How does that affect their self-‐image and sense of well-‐being? They are at an age where peer pressure is intense. Regardless of what they know to be good, might they fail to choose it their peers are choosing something else? So, these are six issues that I wanted to explore in order to get a more nuanced picture of students’ mo5va5on. References: • Benson, P. (2001). Teaching and researching autonomy in language learning. London: Longman. • Dornyei, Z. & Hadfield, J. (2013). Mo4va4ng learning. London: Pearson. • Dornyei, Z. & Ushioda, E. (2011). Teaching and researching mo4va4on, 2nd ed. London: Longman. • Harmer, J. (2007). The prac,ce of English language teaching, 3rd ed. London: Longman, p. 98-‐104. • Huang, J. (2011). A dynamic account of autonomy, agency and iden,ty in (T)EFL learning. In Murray, G., Gao, A., & Lamb, T. (Eds.) Iden4ty, mo4va4on, and autonomy in language learning. Bristol, UK: Mul,lingual Ma1er, p 229-‐246. • Norton, B. (2012). Iden4ty and language learning. Bristol, UK: Mul,lingual Ma1ers. • Ryan, S. & Mercer, S. (2011). Natural talent, natural acquisi,on and abroad: learner a1ribu,ons of agency in language learning. In Murray, G., Gao, A., & Lamb, T. (Eds.) Iden4ty, mo4va4on, and autonomy in language learning. Bristol, UK: Mul,lingual Ma1er, p 160-‐176. The diagram they refer to on p 165 is from: h1p://
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Ilene: Southlands – 7th and 8th grade – three classes – beginning, middle, advanced – 40 total, 35 new arrivals. Also a few high school students… Erik: Fairmont – 9th and 10th grade, one class, beginning 15 students, new arrival. In addi,on, 7 students in a senior year support wri,ng class.
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Which of the six aspects of mo,va,on are most salient for these students? – measured with survey and journal prompts Is there a rela,onship between mo,vated aJtudes and mo,vated behaviors? Mo,vated aJtudes? Good scores on the survey Mo,vated behaviors? higher grades and posi,ve class behaviors as measured impressionis,cally by the T
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Before we go on I want to say that the study is preliminary. We weren’t able to analyze all our data and we weren’t able to analyze in all the ways we’d hoped, e.g., using sta,s,cs. S,ll, there are some results we think will be helpful to you—or inspire you to do your own classroom-‐based research.
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I took the six issues and included them in a 22-‐item likert scale survey. They were translated in Mandarin for the Chinese students, or given in English to the few students from other language backgrounds such as Vietnamese or Japanese. The survey was given to Erik and Ilene’s students toward the beginning of the fall semester.
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Here are examples of the statements. For some (like the first), we would expect a strong student to disagree. For others, the hoped for response would be agreement.
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The 22 statements were chosen to get at the beliefs we men,oned earlier and included opposite pairs—though mixed up on the actual survey. Let’s quickly look at the items.
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Here’s how the survey was analyzed. First of all, “ideal” scores were noted. For example, we would expect that a very strong student would believe more in their own hard work and less on luck—hence the scores of 1 and 4. Then student scores were averaged—let me know if you’d like more details on that. Then I compared student averages to ideals. If the difference is a small number, it means the student scores were close to ideal. This is a pilot study and we have not run sta,s,cs. We chose to look at differences greater than 1.
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We would expect that a highly mo,vated student with a strong sense of agency would believe in their own success. The fact that students were not at the “ideal” score probably is a sign of their humility. They might be assuming that they’re not successful if they’re not earning 100%. There might in fact be some reality to their opinion about not being successful, since we surveyed beginning students. It might also reflect the fact that some of these students are in the U.S. because they were not doing well in the compe,,ve Chinese exam-‐based system. Finally, It should be noted that scores were similar across all levels.
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In terms of student opinions about whether or their teachers are most responsible for success, adults may be expected to value their own contribu,ons to learning, and not rely on teachers so much, but it is reasonable for students in a private school to expect good teachers. Students from Asia in par,cular value excellence in teaching.
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The students we surveyed believe in hard work, but they also believe in natural talent. How do we encourage those learners who feel they aren’t talented enough?
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Ideally, students would disagree with the statement about how easy it is to learn English in the U.S. However, these students were not as strongly opposed to this statement as the ideal. Again, they believe in hard work, but they may not have a realis,c idea of how hard they need to work, even here in the U.S.
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They are fairly close to the ideal when it comes to the value of mistakes, but could s,ll use some encouragement about mistakes being our friends. They know the right answer, but it’s s,ll hard for them to live out these aJtudes.
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Whether or not students perceive parental approval seems to be an individual issue. Many agree that their parents are proud of them and disagree that their parents think they are a failure, but the broad spread in numbers (meaning that some students agreed and some disagreed, resul,ng in a middle/average score) indicates that this isn’t true for every individual. The fact is that students whose parents have sent them to a new country don’t all have the same feelings about this.
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Peer pressure can have a posi,ve or nega,ve effect, depending on the behavior of the majority of students. It seems that peer pressure might be more of an issue for high school students compared to junior high students (though our N was only 7 for Southlands high school).
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The number of the ler means that many students agree with the statement that they know how to succeed in school. However, we would hope that the same number disagree that “doing well is a mystery.” The larger number on the right side might mean that the survey statement was confusing.
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We also looked more closely at different groups and saw that there were some differences. Most students believe they know what to do, but beginners are less confident than others. (Numbers need to be checked again.)
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It’s encouraging that this doesn’t appear to be a problem for these adolescent students, at least if they understood the survey.
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As we saw in the beginning, Dornyei believes that a strong vision of one’s future self using English well is an important element in mo,va,on. We had two survey ques,ons focusing on opposite ends of this issue.
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These numbers should really be closer. Are students not being honest? Might they be confused about the ques,on? Does this mean that teachers should help students see their ideal selves and use that for present mo,va,on? Dornyei and Hadfield have some prac,cal ideas for how to accomplish this.
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To allow students to express more detailed or nuanced ideas about issues such as the role of natural talent versus hard work or the value of mistakes, we also had journal prompts. Erik asked his students to respond roughly once a week.
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We have had students who weren’t mo,vated to study because they didn’t believe their future success depended on hard work; however the majority of these students don’t appear to believe that—at least not publicly. The responses they wrote about “good teacher” may be of interest. Here are some samples: • A good teacher will tell you what you should do. • If you want to succeed you must find a good teacher. • If I become sad, teacher will support me, make me believe in myself. • The good teacher will some important thing that will help your life.
There’s a strong tradi,on in Asia valuing teachers and I think these responses reflect this. We teachers should be doing our best to live up to the expecta,ons students have for us, while also encouraging them in ways they can take ini,a,ve, be responsible, and prac,ce autonomy.
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Speaking of autonomy, this prompt was included to get a sense of whether students have a clear idea of what they can do to succeed in school.
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As you can see, the advice varied. Some wasn’t really relevant to revealing whether students are capable autonomous learners, e.g., “The school food isn’t good—bring your lunch” Other advice showed that students have internalized or are at least repea,ng what they have heard from others: “They can join some club and prac,ce their spoken English. Because they need to talk to another student that come from many different country, they must use English.” A Japanese student wrote two things that reiterated what she’s heard from her teacher: “It is a good thing to ask many ques,ons.” and “a Learner’s dic,onary is good for you, so I recommend to use it.” Maybe this advice is also something a student has heard from his teacher: “Don’t flush your ,me down the toilet, dude!” J I think these journal entries reveal that students at this age are developing the capacity to be autonomous learners. Advice and encouragement from teachers and others can have a significant impact.
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This prompt was included because students who fear mistakes and avoid failure will probably not succeed in learning a new language. Ilene observed some students engaging in “avoid mistakes” behaviors, such as changing incorrect answers during peer homework checks, or giving up arer a bad test score—rather than being mo,vated to learn from mistakes or try new strategies arer a failure.
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Many students seemed to have thought about this before. Three of them cited Thomas Edison as an example of someone who failed many ,mes before eventually succeeding. Other role models for success arer failure whom students men,oned were Steve Jobs and Jeremy Lin. Two quoted the proverb “Failure is the mother of success” and another the saying ”The road to success is paved with failure.” Teachers have to be sensi,ve to whether an individual student is someone who needs help in seeing the value of mistakes or the posi,ve role of failure can play. And to be honest, even students who have ra1led off, “Failure is the mother of success” may not feel the same way they have personally failed. We all need encouragement when faced with mistakes we wish we hadn’t made.
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This prompt was related to fixed vs growth mindset. The stronger their fixed mindset, the more likely students are to imagine that something outside of them, such as an English-‐speaking environment, will ensure their success—as opposed to their own hard work. It’s also related to agency.
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Most students agreed. The two students who disagreed cited people they knew in their home countries who spoke English well though they hadn’t travelled. They both emphasized that if you study, you’ll learn, wherever you are. The majority of students, however, agreed. This means that teachers might have to remind them of the reality—hard work is necessary. Although living in the U.S. and going to an American school provides lots of opportuni,es to hear and use English, the expecta,ons are also higher, and the steep learning curve -‐-‐ both cultural and linguis,c—requires diligence and perseverance.
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This prompt was inspired by Dornyei’s model of mo,va,on which gives a prominent place to students having a clear vision for their poten,al. Such a vision helps students move from the present to the future.
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Students did not have much to say in response to this prompt. Perhaps typically of students this age they didn’t have a rich, elaborate, detailed, vision of themselves in the future. Teachers might be able to do more to mo,vate students by reminding them of a relevant, plausible self. For example, they might say, “I can see you next year having a leadership role of the school student government” or “I think you will be a strong writer in a few years if you keep up this work.”
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As we saw at the beginning of the presenta,on, when students see English as a means for real communica,on of their true selves, they are more mo,vated. For adults, not being able to “be themselves” can be a powerful mo,vator or inhibitor to speaking a new language .English-‐speaking American adults respond with statements such as, “Speaking Spanish in Colombia, I was oren described as having "tenderness," a quality I was never complimented with in America!” “Here in Japan I get way more girly.” “Arer years in Germany, my American friends think that I am much more direct and asser,ve, but my German friends view me as quiet and gentle.” That was what this prompt intended to get at.
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The students, however, saw this prompt as being about one’s proficiency in the new language. Their replies didn’t really help us understand whether they feel that they cannot “be themselves” in English.
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Teachers feel that oren adolescent students are drawn to poor learning behaviors by their peer, includes speaking Chinese over English, or not doing classwork well. This journal prompt sought to understand the effect of peer pressure.
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The prompt revealed that peer pressure is understandably real for these students, but it wasn’t worded to get at the learning behaviors we were interested in.
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Finally, we want to touch on our second research ques,on: Is there a rela,onship between mo,vated aJtudes and mo,vated behaviors?
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We were not able to go into detail with all the students, but we were able to look at Erik’s class of beginners, include grades on recent tests and teacher opinion of classroom behavior, and divide students into high, mid, or low groups. It appears as if there’s some weak connec,on between students who have aJtudes we associate with strong mo,va,on and the grades and class behavior to match, but the numbers aren’t that dis,nct.
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Students in this class have been at Fairmont for a few years if not all of their high school career, but are s,ll in a non-‐credit wri,ng class—not good! Is this the result of lower levels of mo,va,on? That’s not shown by the survey. Similar to the freshmen in the prep class, their average score was 1.0. There was no difference in the top and bo1om students. This might tell us a couple of things—(1) the aJtude survey isn’t very reliable, (2) students can talk a good line, but can’t walk the talk.
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Overall, both the results of the survey and the teachers’ experiences this year indicate that students are more mo,vated.
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That brings us back to the aspects of mo,va,on that are within the control of the teacher or the school. Let’s hear about some of the changes in either school or class which might have led to the students we surveyed being more mo,vated that the students last year.
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Ilene – there were several changes made at the school and in her class: • ELLs used to be on a separate campus à Now the whole school is together. • Last year there were older students (e.g., 17 years old) placed in middle school à
This year students are more typically middle school age. • Last year there was a very strict policy re English only, missed tests, and late
homework à The policies have been revised to prevent defea,sm • Addi,on of a weekly advisory period with a teacher who helps with staying
organized, assessing grades, goal seJng • Ilene has ins,tuted some whole class accountability and students mo,va,ng each
other to make peer pressure posi,ve. For example, if all students turn their homework in on ,me, the whole class gets points (used toward a homework pass)
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Erik: ins,tuted some changes in his class: Students choose their own books in an extensive reading program à autonomy Students can do extra credit project, e.g., a presenta,on of a topic of their choice Erik is emphasizing on asking ques,ons (even during tests if there’s an unknown word) Erik is helping students to think about their future selves [see trajectories in next slides) Erik read in a book about mo,va,on that teachers can have a demo4va4ng effect on students—he’s been trying to maintain posi,ve rela,onships with students
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Erik uses this chart with his students, asking them whether they want to follow the top or the bo1om line.
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He periodically adds ac,vi,es to the chart. If students are engaging in some of the bo1om ac,vi,es, he projects the chart and asks students where they want to go.
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Mo,va,on is complex. It’s not just a ma1er of a student having it or not, being on or off. This presenta,on has just scratched the surface of the many elements that make up this construct.
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Let’s make sure we as teachers are doing what we can to ensure posi,ve mo,va,on (ler column). In addi,on (right column), let’s include in our orienta,on, instruc,on, and interac,on with our students ways to encourage their agency, autonomy, growth mindset, and posi,ve view of their future self. Let’s help them resist peer pressure and let’s try to know who they are and thus strengthen their sense of iden,ty.
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