Motivation

I am in the teacher education program because I love children and I want to make a difference in their lives. I think teachers are one of the most influential people in a child's life and I find that to be important. When I look back on my childhood, I can recall those who have made an impact in my life and many of those people are teachers. I believe learning is one of the most important tools and I want to give my students the motivation to achieve that. I want to help them realize how important learning really is. I am in Educational Psychology because I am here to learn. I am here to learn how to be a great teacher. I am here because I want to learn important tools for success, not only for my students, but also for myself. I do not know everything and this class will give me insights and extra knowledge, such as, learning styles, communities, behaviors, etc. This will be helpful as I work with my students. I am at UVU because I heard this is one of the best schools. I chose UVU because I heard the staff was great to work with and they have excellent teachers to learn from.


What motivates me is seeing people happy and seeing progress made. Learning motivates me. Other people also help motivate me. I seem to do better when I know others have faith in me, which in return gives me faith in myself.


I succeed because I study hard and work for what I want. I am a perfectionist and I have to finish everything I am assigned to do. I do not give up. I fail because I doubt myself. "Attribution Theory suggests that students attribute academic success and failure to four main factors: ability, effort, luck, and task difficulty." (Pg 342) Some children develop learned helplessness and believe they cannot change and they are destined to fail. They doubt their ability, which leads to lack of effort and the clear distinction of difficulty. I can relate to this because there are times when I have low self-esteem and believe I cannot accomplish something. That is why what motivates me is seeing people happy and making progress. I would never want a child to feel helpless when learning.

I would say my course contract reflects mastery goals because my goals focus on improvements and increased understanding. As a teacher, I do not think you ever come to an end result because there is always something new to learn or something to improve on. I want to remember what I worked on rather than passing something off and forgetting about it soon after. I believe what this says about me is I work for myself to feel happy. I know I am not perfect and I do not know all of the answers so I am working to improve for myself. I am going to be a teacher and therefore need to constantly increase my understanding and remember it.

I need to change my motivations and mindset for this class by being positive about everything that comes my way. I need to look forward to the reading and doing all the assignments and not just look at it as another thing to do. I also need to focus on what is happening now rather than looking towards the future and wishing that to come more quickly. By doing all of this, it will help me to become a better teacher.