COMPETENCE
Reflecting on Competence.pdfI want to feel a sense of significance, worth, and accomplishment.
For us to feel capable, we need a sense of empowerment, worthiness, self-efficacy, and achievement. This means an inner sense of achievement, accomplishment, pride, importance, and self-esteem and an outer sense of being heard and respected and feeling competent and attaining recognition.
This Hooray for Monday blog post by Aleta Margolis explores the importance of competence.
You can fill out the reflection sheet below and be emailed a copy of your responses, or you can download this printable version to write on by hand.
What do you typically say to students when they do high quality work? With adults eager to encourage and support children, “good job” and “nice work” become some of the most commonly-heard phrases in classrooms (and throughout our culture). Over time, however, these generic, evaluative forms of praise actually serve to diminish students’ self-confidence as learners, and decrease their interest in learning for its own sake. Descriptive feedback is much more meaningful and orients students toward both their learning process and intrinsic interest in learning. In this #InstigatorofThought Challenge, you track how often you provide generic praise and try some new language for meaningful - and supportive, encouraging - feedback.
If we think about what motivates us to try new things, most often we can overcome our fear of incompetence when three things are present: choice, relevance, and joy. This reflective activity encourages us to look for ways to bring more of all of these things into our classrooms and lives.
