Module 5

Keller's ARCS model is the perfect way to motiviate both students and teachers. Attention, relevance, confidence, and satisfaction all determine how someone feels about a particular lesson or task. Being the computer teacher, I am always the one trying to encourage teachers to use technology in the classroom. In North Carolina, all eighth grade students are required to take and pass a computer skills test. I learned that it was not my job to prepare the students for this test, it was every teacher job. Every discipline was expected to incoroporate spreadsheets, databases, presentation software, and word processing in their courses. When I explained this to the math, english, social studies, science and all the other teachers, they got upset. I realized it was because they didn't know themselves how to use these things and felt they had no support. So I arranged times with several teachers to show them a program they could use and how to use it in their course. For example with a science teacher, I showed him what the state expected students to know concerning spreadsheets, taught him the proper terminology, and helped him to see he is responsible for incorporating these lessons. I showed him how to use a spreadsheet to plot the information from an earthquake, view it as a plot graph, and then students could identify what type of shift was made during the earthquake. We looked up resources on the internet, practiced a couple of times and the teacher became totally comfortable and was able to use it in his class. It also gave him satisfaction knowing that if he needeed help I was available.