One of the concepts discussed in the chapter is self-efficacy. "Self-efficacy refers to an 'I can' belief in self that leads to a sense of competence" (Vacca, Vacca, Martinez 169). The idea is that students focus on their own estimations of their ability to apply whatever skills they bring to a specific content area. (The chapter focuses on literacy learning, but for the sake of this journal, I will broaden the scope.) In my mind, I see all of those times in high school when either I was at a low level of self-efficacy, or I witnessed someone else with a low level of self-efficacy. For example, when it came to mathematics I had very little confidence in the abilities I brought to that area of learning. I knew it was something that was difficult for me to grasp conceptually, and I therefore was not motivated to learn new things.
When it comes to teaching students literacy, the level of self-efficacy is the "make-or-break" moment in learning. If a student isn't confident in his or her own ability to read and understand key concepts, it is likely they will shut down and lose all motivation. It's not necessarily that they don't care, they either find the reading and content irrelevant, too difficult, or in some cases they actually can't understand it. "Students' motivation for reading and learning with texts increases when they perceive that text is relevant to their own lives and when they believe that they are capable of generating credible responses to their reading of the text" (171). This reminds me of a post I made several weeks ago regarding trade books. Trade books are a great way of mixing up the texts that students read in order to keep them interested and to make sure some texts are actually reaching them at a deeper level.
What can this look like in the classroom, and how can a teacher go about motivating students to learn literacy? The textbook talks about arousing curiosity to help raise important questions that can only be answered by reading the material and giving thought to what they have read. Another potential idea would be to give students a perspective of the reading they should be looking for beforehand, so that they read the material with the purpose of looking for something particular, and not just skimming the text. In my classroom, I hope to hold discussions before, during, and after the completion of the reading, to keep students engaged, responsible, and interested in what they are reading.
You make an interesting connection between prior knowledge and self-efficacy. So often it's not an inability to do the work that is at the heart of the problem. Lacking any background knowledge to which to connect new knowledge can be a huge obstacle. And prior experiences of failure can be a barrier for students' motivation.
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