I am noticing the consistent concern from students to meet the approval of the teacher. They complete work mostly to turn it in to the teacher. They want to get tasks "done". The problem with this behavior, or more of a routine since it seems to have developed into a habit, is that students do not recognize the importance of doing the work. What they should be learning and why they should be learning such specific tasks that are incorporated in lessons must be emphasized, repeated, and if needed, converted into terms students understand. Consequently, because of the constant disruptive behavior during my math lessons, I will explain to them the rationale of teaching the lesson several times throughout the lesson. Students will therefore learn why they need to be focused and try hard to learn the concepts I am teaching. Grasping students attention is hard since this concept is not realized yet by many students.
Another reason though for the disruptive behavior I believe is a result of not seeing enough problems. Students are not able to recognize patterns repeated in multiple problems of the same concept (i.e. finding common denominators, decomposing fractions, adding/subtraction fractions) and are not being provided with enough opportunities to test out patterns they have recognized.
Another slant that I might put on what you are noticing is to ask to what extent these assignments, activities, etc. are teacher-driven. Although I would certainly stress the importance of explaining to students the rationale for what they are doing, students might still find the work irrelevant if it seems to come solely from the teacher or the textbook. In this case, it might be perceived as simply something they are being told to do, rather than something that is meaningful to them. There are two potential approaches that can assuage this dilemma: The first is to think about making the unit / instruction more "culturally relevant" - that is, relevant to the students' interests and daily lives (e.g., when do they use these math skills outside of the context of school)? The second is to think about ways to incorporate what students already know / think. This requires making tasks and activities much more open-ended and high-level, in which students are representing the mathematics and creating mathematical products that are unique to their own understanding. In this way, students may be more intrinsically motivated to draw on what they already know, rather than attempt to learn a new or foreign concept or procedure. If they can represent the new through what they already know, students may be more driven to attempt the work required of them.
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