Motivating Teachers in the Rio Grande Valley to Attend Continued Education during Summer Break Ashley Wheeler John ‘Mike’ Sandoval Griselda Hernandez Gerson Galloso Albert Cortez 6/2/2015 Professor: Dr. Erasmus Addae ORGL 4341 –Management Theory 1
Introduction Background The Texas Public School System across the state is currently under scrutiny from the Texas Education Agency (TEA), due to diminishing standardized test scores and the accusation of ineffective teaching strategies. Problem For 3 salary compensated months of the year which could be easily spent in CE Course work, teachers become unmotivated and do not wish to interrupt precious paid time off. These professionals work 9 months out of a 12 year calendar but because so many school districts extend teacher salaries throughout 12 months, teachers like students shy away from any career related work and opt instead for travel, personal time, and relaxation. Significance The Texas Education Agency’s dissatisfaction with standardized test scores may lead to loss or decrease in funding, leaving students to pay the ultimate price of the TEA’S ineffective teaching strategies. To battle this accusation and ensure funding stays intact, public school districts have increased the minimum Continuing Education Hours that teachers are required to attend in a given year. By providing teachers ample opportunity over ideal summer months to attend CE Workshops, the Texas Public School System will help ensure teachers are obtaining the vital resources needed applicable for the classroom setting in order to flip test scores around. Providing the body of knowledge to teachers through CE hrs. may enhance levels of motivation which will have a riveting effect on test scores and, consequently, issues with loss of/or decreased state agency funding. Research Goal The goal of this study is to investigates what motivates teachers in the primary and secondary school system in the Rio Grande Valley to attend continuing education (CE) courses during their summer vacation.
Purpose Understanding what motivates these teachers to attend CE’s during summer will have a direct correlation between their effective teacher strategies and the standardized test scores in the Rio Grande Valley. Research Questions 1. What intrinsic motivators are more effective for teachers to attend CE courses during the summer break? 2. What extrinsic motivators are more effective for teachers to attend CE courses during the summer break? 3. What is the relationship between learning styles and motivation of the selected teachers in the RGV? Literature Review and Synthesis of Evidence McKee (2014) defines motivation as “the result of a complex set of psychological influences and external forces or conditions that cause a person to behave in a certain way while maintain a certain level of effort and persistence”. Taking motivation to another level, McKee (2014) continues to explain that there are two types of motivators; intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic motivators are “the satisfaction of doing something well, interesting and appropriately challenging tasks, autonomy/empowerment, learning, contributing to others in a meaningful way and relatedness (McKee, 2014). Extrinsic motivators are “pay and other material rewards, avoiding being fired, people’s approval, social status, fame and grades (McKee, 2014). A study done by Sengodan and Iksan found a positive correlation between learning styles and intrinsic motivators. Learning styles do have a relationship with intrinsic motivations (Sengodan & Iksan, 2012). The selection of appropriate learning styles can increase students motivation (Sengodan & Iksan, 2012). According to the TEA website accountability ratings are given to all public schools, they use a performance index and each measure contributes points to an index score. Each of the four indexes has a score of 0 to 100 representing campus or district performance points as a percent of the maximum possible points for that campus or district (Accountability System, 2014). Accountability ratings in the Rio Grande Valley are median according than the state average; with McAllen ISD, Edinburg ISD and PharrSan JuanAlamo ISD meeting accountability ratings in regards to student achievement, student progress, closing performance gaps and postsecondary readiness. Edinburg ISD and McAllen ISD lead the valley public schools with 76% index scores each, with PharrSan JuanAlamo ISD at 64% (Accountability Rating System, 2014). In order to better understand the learning environment that is most effective for teachers attending CE’s in the summer, we administered a VARK on all the teachers that were randomly
chosen to fill out the survey we created. “ The acronym VARK stands for Visual, Aural, Read/write, and Kinesthetic sensory modalities that are used for learning information. Fleming and Mills (1992) suggested four modalities that seemed to reflect the experiences of the students and teachers” (The Vark Modalities, n.d.) Project Plan and Methodology Create a survey for 50 teachers of primary grades in the Edinburg ISD to complete in regards to what would motivate them to attend CE’s during summer. The reason we chose to use teachers in the Edinburg ISD was because of convenience and accessibility. The same 50 teachers that completed the survey, will complete a VARK. The VARK will be administered to gather further information of the learning styles of the teachers. This information will be used to ensure teachers are assigned to CE’s that incorporate their learning style to maximize their learning. After completing and selfscoring their VARK, teachers will complete the survey. The Surveys will then be tallied and VARK information will be grouped in order to group and analyze the data. The resources we will use to group and analyze the data is Microsoft Excel and Minitab. Resources Available MiniTab Microsoft Excel VARK test Completed teacher surveys Conclusion Discovering a direct correlation between what motivates a teacher to want to attend a continuing education course and scheduling these courses in the summer is extremely important. Analyzing the data gained from the surveys and the VARK given to the teachers in the Edinburg Independent School District will offer valuable insight to school administration. This new information will help the schools accomplish their goal of increasing the number of teachers attending continuing education courses in the summer, to increase teacher effectiveness, which increases students test scores and ultimately decreases their districts probability to not lose funding due to poor student achievement.
Potential Impact for management and organizational leadership Local school districts’ funding are in jeopardy from the Texas Education Agency (TEA) due to low standardized test scores, the TEA believes these test scores are a direct correlation of ineffective teaching strategies that are being used in the classroom. Timeline Week 1 Delegate tasks, schedule VARK testing and surveys Week 2 Collect randomized VARK Testing Week 3 Finalize survey Week 4 Collect survey data Week 5 Analyze collected survey data Week 6 Formulate conclusion and create draft Week 7 Finalize and submit final report
References 2014 Accountability Rating System. (2014, December 3). Retrieved June 3, 2015, from http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/perfreport/account/2014/index.html 2014 Accountability System. (2014, September 14). Retrieved June 3, 2015, from http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/perfreport/account/2014/faq.html Fleming, N.D. & Mills, C. (1992). Not Another Inventory, Rather a Catalyst for Reflection . To Improve the Academy, 11, 137155. McKee, A. (2014). Motivation and Meaning: What Makes People Want to Work? In Management: A Focus on Leaders ( Second ed., p. 6470). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education. Motivating teachers to improve instruction. (July 14, 2009). Retrieved June 3, 2015, from http://www.osba.org/Resources/Article/Employee_Management/Motivating_Teachers_to_Impro ve_Instruction.aspx Sengodan, Vijaya, and Zanaton H. Iksan. "Students’ Learning Styles and Intrinsic Motivation in Learning Mathematics." ASS Asian Social Science 8.16 (2012): n. pag. Web.
The VARK Modalities: A Guide to Learning Styles. (n.d.). Retrieved June 3, 2015, from http://varklearn.com/introductiontovark/thevarkmodalities/