Monday, February 18, 2008
Competition in the Classroom
This semester I’m also taking Child and Adolescent Psychology, last week we spoke about competition in the classroom. At first I didn’t like the idea of having competitions in the classroom cause it can cause a student to create a sense of inferiority that can affect the student a long time, especially if its used in an assessment. For example, teachers in my grade school used spelling bees to asses student’s ability to spell instead of having a test, quiz or some other form of assessment. I believe this form of competition is and will always be harmful because students that perform poorly will do so in front of their peers, making them feel inferior to their peer that perform better. But after thinking about competition for a while I changed my mind, it can work if it’s structured differently. If the competition is set up in a way all students can win maybe it might work. For example, the teacher I observed during my Junior field made up a bingo game in which the student completed a matching assignment in class, then after they finished they would use the answer from the assignment instead of numbers on their individual bingo boards. The competition was not in completing the assignment or getting certain questions right but in where you placed the answers on the bingo board and then they played long enough for a large number amount of students won. Even thought that I agree on this kind of competition I don’t agree in any competition as an assessment.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Isaac,
Interesting thoughts.
I think that competitions can be healthy if used correctly in a classroom. As teachers, we need to know our students and know what they can and cannot handle in terms of competitions. This teacher you spoke of knew the "Bingo" game would assist in the learning process.
However, competitions can also allow students to understand the art of winning and losing. Some students may need to be taught *how* to lose or to win. This may be a lesson in and of itself. Life is actually a competition, and as teachers we need to prepare the students for it.
Yes or no?
What do you think?
As a highly competitive person the idea of eliminating competition in the classroom seems ridiculous to me. However, I definitely agree, competition should not be a form of assessment, rather it should be a review for an assessment. A lot of my classes in high school used bingo or scrabble or jeopardy as a review and an opportunity to earn extra credit points on a test to follow in the next few days. I think it was very effective and kept students interested and involved.
Post a Comment