dembo@usc.edu
Irvine Unified School District
January 27, 2009
1

2

The Role of Parents in How Children
Approach Achievement
• Parenting practices—i.e. parents’ actions or behaviors, such as involvement in children’s schooling
• Parents’ perceptions of children’s competence
• Parental affect: relatedness between parents and children
3

Children need to feel that they are :
• Competent
• Autonomous
4

• Authoritarian
• Authoritative
• Permissive
5

1. Competition is a great motivator.
2. Human intelligence is fixed by the time a students begins school.
3. Intelligence is the most important factor in predicting success in school.
4. The key to success in school is having good instructors.
5. The best way to remember and learn a new fact is to repeat it a number of times
6

6. Children are more likely to be creative when parents allow them to make their own decisions without imposing many expectations and rules of behavior.
7. Corporal punishment, although often not popular, leads to better behaved children who are able to control their behavior later in life.
8. It is important that parents not allow their children to be bored.
7

Parent Involvement in School Benefits Students’
Learning and Academic Success
• Parent-teacher conferences
• Participation in school activities or functions
• Engaging in academic activities at home
• Keeping abreast of students’ academic progress
• Reaction to academic grades
• Imparting parental values
8

• Dealing with stress
• Identifying signs of ego involvement
• Keeping the focus on learning
• Allowing children to take responsibility
9

 Defensive Dimitri – more motivated to avoid failure than to succeed.
 Safe Susan – underachiever, plays it safe
 Hopeless Henry – learned helplessness
 Satisfied Sheila – does not seek high grades
 Anxious Alberto – high anxiety, low selfconfidence
10

• Goals
• Self-worth
• Interests and values
• Self-efficacy
• Self theories
11

12

Hoped-for possible self we would like to become (e.g., teacher, attorney, professional athlete)
Expected possible self we are fairly sure we can become (e.g., college graduate)
Feared possible self we wish to avoid becoming
(e.g., a dropout, homeless, unemployed)
How one thinks about the self and the future
13

• Discovering –What are my strengths and weaknesses?
• Thinking – Who am I? What are my hopes and fears?
• Sketching - What am I like?
• Reflecting – What can I be?
• Growing – How can I reach my goals?
• Performing – How am I doing?
14

Covington’s Self-Worth Theory
(1992)
Self-worth = ability = performance
 Self-worth is based on ability, BUT if one can demonstrate that his or her performance does not reflect on ability, then self-worth is maintained. This is why students often use failure-avoidance strategies.
15

• Intrinsic value ( = enjoyment one gets from the activity)
• Extrinsic value (=utility or usefulness in terms of future goal)
• Attainment value (= importance of doing well on the task)
– A student can have different value orientations for different tasks.
– He or she can also have them all for the same task.
16

• Key aspect of self-regulatory strategies
--Students with higher self-efficacy set higher goals and expend more effort
--Students with higher self-efficacy use more cognitive and metacognitive strategies and persist longer
17

How Self-Theories Can Influence learning
Definition
Students’ goal
Entity Theory Incremental
Theory
Intelligence is fixed Intelligence is malleable
Look smart even if sacrifice learning
Native ability
Learn new things even if hard or risky
Effort, strategies What creates learning?
What is success?
What does failure mean?
What does effort mean?
Being smarter than others
Failure means low intelligence
Effort means low intelligence
From Dweck and Master, 2008
Improvement and mastery
Failure mans low effort, poor strategy
Effort activates and uses intelligence
18

19

“It is not that students don’t have the ability to succeed. The problem is that they have not acquired all the tools necessary to learn.”
20

The ability of learners to control the factors or conditions affecting their learning.
“Learning is not something that happens to students, it is something that happens by students.” -
Zimmerman
21

• Motivation (Why?)
• Methods of learning (How?)
• Use of time (When?)
• Control of one’s physical environment (Where?)
• Control of one’s social environment (With whom?)
• Control of one’s performance (What?)
From Dembo, M, & Seli, H. (2008). Motivation and Learning Strategies for College Success (3 nd
ed.). New York: Taylor & Francis.
22

• They have faulty beliefs about their ability, learning, and motivation.
• They are unaware of their ineffective learning behavior.
• They fail to sustain effective learning and motivational strategies.
23

• Types of strategies
--rehearsal copying, taking verbatim notes, reciting words and definitions
--elaboration summarization, annotation, elaborative interrogation
--organizational visual representations
24

The procedure is actually quite simple. First you arrange things into different groups depending on their makeup. Of course, one pile may be sufficient depending on how much there is to do. If you have to go somewhere else due to lack of facilities that is the next step, otherwise you are pretty well set. It is important not to overdo any particular endeavor. That is, it is better to do too few things at once than too many. In the short run this may not seem important, but complications from doing too many can easily arise. A mistake can be expensive as well. The manipulation of the appropriate mechanisms should be self-explanatory, and we need not dwell on it here. At first the whole procedure will seem complicated. Soon, however, it will become just another facet of life. It is difficult to foresee any end to the necessity for this task in the immediate future, but then one never can tell
25

Federation vs. Confederation
In a federation, the national government is fully sovereign; the states may not withdraw without the consent of the national authorities; and the people create both the national government and the state governments, delegate powers to both, and may restrict both through the written constitution. The national government may act directly on the people; it can tax and draft them. In contrast, in a confederation, the states are sovereign; they may join the nation or withdraw from it at will. They delegate specified powers to national institutions and reserve all others to themselves. The national "government" is a creature of the states and can deal only with the states, not directly with their citizens.
Confederation is an ancient form of government; it has bound people together throughout history, from the time of the alliances of the Israelite tribes to the Renaissance and the confederacies which flourished in what is today Germany, Italy...Federalism is more modern; it was developed first in the United States and later was adopted by one-third of the countries of the world, including the Soviet Union, Brazil, India, Nigeria Mexico...
26

What is the difference between a Federation Versus
Confederation ?
In a federation, the national government is fully sovereign; the states may not withdraw without the consent of the national authorities; and the people create both the national government and the state governments, delegate powers to both, and may restrict both through the written constitution. The national government may act directly on the people; it can tax and draft them. In contrast, in a confederation, the states are sovereign; they may join the nation or withdraw from it at will. They delegate specified powers to national institutions and reserve all others to themselves. The national "government" is a creature of the states and can deal only with the states, not directly with their citizens.
Confederation is an ancient form of government; it has bound people together throughout history, from the time of the alliances of the Israelite tribes to the
Renaissance and the confederacies which flourished in what is today Germany,
Italy...Federalism is more modern; it was developed first in the United States and later was adopted by one-third of the countries of the world, including the Soviet
Union, Brazil, India, Nigeria Mexico...
27

• Mirror
– If the information in my notes was an answer to a question, what would the question be? (Unlimited quantity)
• Summary
– What is one major question that reflects the purpose of today’s lecture?
– (usually no more than 1-2 per lecture)
28

What is the difference between a federal and unitary government?
Federalism
Main idea flushed to margin authority is divided bet. nat. and regional level
Did not exist before 1787
US has been gov. as confederacy-auth. given to states
Mirror
Question
Unitary authority solely in nat. gov.
Ex. Japan and Sweden
Indent examples and supplementary info
29

– Start 3 inches in from left-hand margin
– Use abbreviations & condense information
– Have date and pg. number on each pg.
– NOT record word-for-word
– Use mirror questions in left-had margin
– Use both lower & higher-level questions
– Use a summary question
30

31