Human Performance Improvement Week 7 reflection

Chapter 14 was a bit difficult for me at first. I actually had to read the chapter twice to feel I had a grasp of the information covered. I understood a few items. Human Performance Improvement is very important to education today. I know that the school I work at is under the gun to improve the students’ state standardized scores every year. While I was reading the chapter, I found myself thinking about a recent staff meeting. All of the teachers in the jr./sr high school were present with the principal and the superintendent. We were like a brainstorming HPI machine, trying to figure out ways to improve student performance on these Michigan state tests. It was very informative. We were able to pin down the problem areas and tried to come up with ways to correct them. Our main problem is student motivation. Our school is very small and one student can count up to 3% on a standardized test. This is difficult when there are several students who don’t care about the test, have no motivation for performing well on the test, and would rather blow the test than spend even five minutes working on it. This is very frustrating. We had all sorts of very good ideas including getting parents involved and training the teachers to help the students achieve better on these types of tests, but it didn’t solve the problem of motivation. We then discussed ways to motivate the kids to care. I gave an example of what I do in my classroom. In the JR. High, we celebrate the high scores in an awards ceremony. This helps to get the achievers to keep achieving. I also bribe the students into actually completing the test by giving them a three hour (three class period) break from English class to kick back and watch a modern movie. They only get this reward if every single student puts forth their best effort. I walk around the room on test day and look to see if the students are filling in all of the blanks and writing a good looking essay. (I can’t talk to them, but they know I am looking and taking mental notes. This gets even the unmotivated student to write something. No one wants to be the kid who blows it for the entire jr. high. Finally, I offer them a cake and pizza party if they beat the scores from the year before. Most years I have had to follow through. This has increased the test scores over 50% in the past four years. Of course, none of these strategies would work if the educational basis were not in place. Hopefully the school can make this type of reinforcement for performance a school wide idea. I really believe it would help. As for the teachers, the motivation is to see our school start getting the credit it deserves for the educational excellence that we give our students everyday. It is painful to have people think your students are dumb and the teachers are worse when it is just a few unmotivated students throwing the test. We’ll have to see if this works.