Eng 345 Post # 5

The readings from Kumar and Brown from this past week concentrated on teacher and student learning, cognitive, socio-effective and linguistic principles, and strategic based instruction.
To begin, I like how Kumar stated that it is the responsibility of the teacher and the student to utilize learning opportunities. Normally, I feel that it is always one way sided. I either hear that it is the fault of the teachers as to why students do not succeed and that it is only the teacher's responsibility to make sure every child is at the same level, or that the student is just a slacker or not smart enough and it is their fault that they are not succeeding.  There is a relationship between the two and that you can not have one with out the other. Although I do believe that it is the teachers responsibility to accommodate to students and make learning creative, there still needs to be involvement from the students. Brown talks about the idea of motivation and intrinsic motivation. For me, I feel that the most important quality a student can have in order to succeed is having the motivation to do well. Think about it, if there is something that you are not interested in and dread doing, the likelyhood of you excelling in that task is not high. If you are motivated and enjoy to a certain extent of what you are doing, the likelihood of success increases immensely. I know from my experience in learning Spanish I would not have been this successful with it if I had not been motivated. I wanted to learn the language on my own for my personal accomplishments. There was no demand in me having to learn the language. The kind of motivation that I had was intrinsic motivation, that Brown discussed, which does not depend on any outside factors. This is where the teacher role in learning comes in to play. The teacher should try and make learning more fun and exciting in order for the students to have better motivation and possibly obtain that intrinsic motivation.
To go off from here, Kumar then explains in the chapter about strategic- based instruction opportunities in order for teachers to use to increase student learning. One of the strategies that she commented on was also what Brown had mentioned, increasing motivation and also learners of diverse styles. By accommodating to these styles, students can feel more comfortable in their learning environment and have a better understanding.
All in all, it is important that this relationship between student and teacher learning continues to grow. The need from both parts is important in the success of education.
What are the some of the ways that we can try and increase this bond? Can we think of any classes that we had more motivation to learn in? Why or why not was this?