In this scenario, Hannah feels as though she is not smart enough to complete the task that is given on her own. This is known as learned helplessness. This can happen to students when they have low self-efficacy and feel like no matter what they do, they cannot grasp the concepts that are being taught in the classroom. Since she feels this way, she has no motivation to work harder to understand the topics in the classroom. This is why she sits idle during class, accomplishing nothing without the help of the teacher.
At first to help Hannah, her teacher could establish short-term goals with her, so that she can see that reaching goals is possible. If necessary, she could also include different reinforcements (or prizes) to help Hannah with the motivation aspect of learning. After accomplishing many of these short-term goals, Hannah will most likely have stronger motivation to do well since she has seen herself to well many times.
The teacher could also use heterogenous grouping in her classroom to help Hannah learn. Since Hannah feels as though she cannot accomplish a task on her own, it might help to place her in a group with many students so that they can help each other. It would be best to put her in a heterogenous group because she can see both ends of the spectrum. From the higher-achieving students, she can receive guidance and help while completing the assignments. From the lower-achieving students, she can see that she is not alone and that other students are struggling, like she is.
I find Erica's idea interesting to use heterogeneous grouping in the classroom to help Hannah learn. I believe that grouping could help with a student like Hannah. Letting other students help each other, may decrease Hannah's learned helplessness, and increase her efforts if she is not being watched by her teacher and on high expectations. Letting peers work together can help with situations like Hannah and the idea of grouping is interesting to think about. Homologous groups would not work for a situation like this because students like Hannah together would not get anything accomplished. But the idea of different students of different levels working together would help a student like Hannah.
ReplyDeleteI want to make sure to point out that you have two different ideas in your first line. Believing that intelligence is stable and determines performance is one idea (related to attribution theory) while learned helplessness is more connected to the belief that the consequences will be the same no matter what action you choose. Of course they are connected, since if you believe intelligence is uncontrollable, you are somewhat helpless to change....
ReplyDeleteI like your suggestion here. I think smaller goals (and SEEING herself succeed) is really powerful. Heterogeneous grouping also sounds like a very realistic and effective way of improving her own beliefs about competence.