Unfortunately like most of us reading this, I too, can picture the class you are describing; I can see their faces and read their body language… I’m also sure from reading your blog that you have tried a variety of approaches with these kids.

One of my very first principals taught me a valuable lesson about working with “difficult” students. He passed away on Friday so I’ve been thinking about him a lot this weekend. The thing that stands out most in my mind about his leadership style was his emphasis on the student. At times frustrating, at times incomprehensible, his message was always consistent. The answer to a student’s misbehaviour, poor attitude, or lack of achievement is within the student…the curriculum is within the student…the way to success can be found within the student… So what the heck does that mean?

I think it ties directly to what you already said: “They feel no one is listening to them”. Furthermore, everything in school is “done” to them – rules, rewards, punishments, assignments, marks, passing, failing…

One would hope that learning to use, combine, design and create media products would be a “carrot” to bring the students closer to enthusiastic response/engaged learning. I think part of the problem is that although the “carrot” may be new and desirable, the same old “stick” is lurking in the background.

Why are they doing this? You are assigning it.
Who are they doing it for? You.
What’s the risk? They are being asked to take a “topic that they have a passion about”, and create a product that will be judged. If the product is found “wanting”, are their ideas, feelings, passions “wanting”?
What’s the payoff? A mark.

Could this become an “un-assignment”, where maybe every person in the class ends up with a completely different performance assessment?
Could the whole process be designed collaboratively with the students from the ground up?

With the students:
-Talk about what you’ve been learning in class. Identify/ break down the skill set.
-Discuss all the possible ways to demonstrate mastery of the skill set.
-Identify potential mentors/experts to help out. Create a plan for contacting/engaging the services of those mentors.
-Identify audiences for performance assessments/ products that would appeal to chosen audiences/ ways to reach target audiences.
-Describe success. What does it look like? What are the criteria? Even if the “wheels fall off” and an end product is not achieved, how can evidence of learning be identified?
-How will the results be communicated? This is the hardest part, because the part of this process that is out of everyone’s control is the report card. So, I guess the guiding question would be, how can we translate the results in a way that is compatible with the report card?

I suspect if you hit the students with all of these questions at once, you’ll be greated with the same apathy, (man, this sounds like even more work). Are any of these ideas helpful?

Good luck with the class, and let us know what happens.

Diane

Do you think they are finding enough relevance in the content? What does their day look like outside of school? What do they do when they get home? If they’re a bunch of gaming types, can they do something around that? Perhaps there is some way to tie the lesson the their lives.

Or, perhaps they lack confidence. Are they put in any situations that might embarrass? Is there any type of reward you could offer them?

Ugh. And I thought motivating adults was hard. Just need to provide some incentive and we were off an running. Good luck. Love what you’re doing in class!
The 80s hair bands must’ve got a chuckle, no?

Janet