Analysis Of The Article Social Predictors Of Changes In Students

The brief research article I read was Social Predictors of Changes in Students’ Achievement Goal Orientations by Lynley Hicks Anderman and Eric M. Anderman. The article talks about what student’s motivation looks like after they transition from elementary school to middle school. They are looking to shed light on specific correlations, such as increases in task goal orientation which can be credited to a sense of school belonging, and responsibility, as well as ability goal orientation which was positively related to ability goal structure in classes, relationships and status goals. Task-goal oriented is when students learn/master a task. They typically are doing this just for themselves, to improve their own knowledge and self-worth. Ability-goal

They do not get to choose hardly anything though, everything is structured and laid out for them. In middle school, students have to begin becoming independent by moving between classes, and they have some ability to choose which classes they wish to take but they also lose free time like recess and gain potentially a study hall. The way things operate in these two different settings effect students motivations, along with social influences. These students have to transition to a new school, with new teachers, and looks, and even has new students. This alone can cause a student to change the way they do things. A huge contributor to the idea that students motivations change goal oriented as well as ability oriented is how the teacher represents learning in the classroom. Within the article they talk about whether the teacher talks a lot about the student’s self improvement, and mastering a task or if they focus on grades, and comparison of the students to one another. If the teacher focuses on self improvement the students are advancing in a goal oriented way rather than ability

A child’s ability to communicate and understand communication is crucial, it is proven that children that do not speak early enough can have long term effects academically as well as psychologically as a result. Baby Sign Language is something many people teach their children, from simple things like the sign food, or potty, or even tired can help a child express their needs significantly better than crying until the parent can determine what the child needs. As the child gets older signing can be further developed by relating it to learning how to read, or learning the words to simple things. For example, when a child is learning sight words, if they simply know how to fingerspell the letters then it gives them one more way to remember the spelling, as wells if they learn that sign at the same time it gives them another way to remember, as well as it relates everything back to something they have known how to do for a while. I really am interested in if this technique could truly have an effect on the way that child learns, over children that have never signed. Babies can learn signing as young as six months old, rather than waiting to learn to talk around 18 months old. I believe that these children have the potential to do better in school, as well as express