EDUC 6760

Educational Inquiry Task 2

School profiles
School A (Observations 1 + 2) School B (Observation 3)

Type Aided primary school (CMI) Aided primary school (CMI)

Grade(s) P2 English / P5 English P6 English

Class size P2: 20-25 / P5: 30 18 students in classroom + 5 students

on Zoom

Classroom - English as the MOI in English lessons - lessons are conducted in dual mode
context - Cantonese is allowed if necessary (e.g. to - 6C is the “elite class” in the form but
aid teachers’ explanation of unknown words / students’ English exam results are still
aid students’ expression) not satisfactory

Characteristics - mother tongue of Student with SEN - - mother tongues: Mandarin,

of student(s) most students: John (to protect students’ Cantonese
Cantonese privacy, the real name is not - some students are new immigrants
used)
- Around 4 students from mainland China
- Diagnosed with ASD
with SEN in each and limited intellectual - the majority of students comes from a
class ability lower SES background
Observation 1 (O1):

School A (P.2)

Students are very enthusiastic about material rewards given by teachers.

O1: Material rewards and praise
Rewards
Example 1:
● Teacher will give small prizes like keychains of some cartoon characters to students if they
do well in their quizzes or exams.
● Students will trade the prize themselves. Some students get the whole collection of the
keychains because they are doing barter.
Example 2:
● Teacher sets up a reward system.
● Each student has a star collection jar next to their desk.
● If they provide meaningful answer to a question in class, they can get one “star” from
teacher’s desk.
● If they get a certain number of stars, they can choose a present from the present rack.

Positive reinforcement:
● When students are distracted and become so noisy, teacher will publicly praise the
students who are still staying on task and being quiet. The whole class will soon be quiet
again.
 O1: Analysis (How are students motivated?)
Rewards as Extrinsic Motivation

➢ eg.1: cartoon keychains serve as an extrinsic motivation encourage students desirable behaviour
➢ eg.2: both the stars and the present serve as extrinsic motivation encourage student to participate in class.

Cater Students’ Diversity

➢ In eg.2, teacher pays attention to the educationally relevant differences of students

● Eg, different learning pace, personality (expressive/ timid)
➢ Cater diversity of both high achievers and low achievers
➢ Not only appreciating correct answer (result) but also good attempt (effort)
➢ Not only students providing accurate answer will be given a star, but the star will also be given to students who try to answer.
● Eg. If teacher ask “What is the plural of Cherry?” If student answer cherrys, it is not the correct answer. But they have notice the form of adding “s” to plural.
Therefore, a star will also be given to them for their attempt.

I think both eg.1 and 2 show the positive impact of using rewards
- Help extrinsically motivate students
- Can also help encouraging students to take risk and try to participate more in class
However, solely or over relying on extrinsic motivation may create problems in the long run.

Positive Reinforcement as Social Motivation

➢ T makes use of praise to settle classroom discipline problem

➢ Does not blame students and somehow negatively reinforce their undesirable behaviour
➢ she uses social motivation like praise to positively reinforce desirable behaviour from good students.
● From teachers’ praise, students will know the expectations of the teacher and what is considered to be desired behaviours
● Other students will see the quiet students as model and follow them as they want to receive the social motivation as well
● Using social motivation at the right timing to can really help with the general classroom management issue
- Eg. off-task chit-chatting sometimes
● It may not really be applicable in serious classroom management issue
- Eg. Specific students interpersonal disputes
- Situation include students with SEN
 O1: Analysis (Rewards and hidden curriculum?)
Hidden curriculum:

The idea of taking “shortcut”

➢ In eg.1, there are many types of cartoon keychains that teacher uses to reward outstanding students according to their academic performance in
assessment (eg. quizzes and exams)
➢ She will distribute the cartoon keychains to those outstanding students randomly
➢ Sometimes students may not get the exact cartoon character they want
➢ Students who received the prize will exchange it among themselves
➢ I noticed some of the students who were not gifted the prize got the prize eventually
● After further investigation, I found that those students had used their own stationeries as “value of exchange” to trade the keychain with the
outstanding students
Prize were used as rewards in the implemented curriculum to motivate students’ learning, but it also created a Hidden Curriculum
that put an emphasis on results more than process. (eg. Keychains are the ultimate goal of students. However, they learnt that they
don’t necessary need to work hard to get them because there are other “shortcuts” like bartering.)

As not all impact from rewards are positive, we have to really think about the influence that every pedagogy may create
The concept of materialism and showing off

➢ Sometimes, students will show off their keychains to other classmates

➢ I noticed that students with more keychains tend to be more confident and will more or less compare the number of theirs to others

It implies that somehow students not only learnt to see the prize as a rewards and acknowledgement of their effort as well as
academic achievement, but they also implicitly learnt to see it as the common indicator to measure someone’s success and
superiority. The concept of using material quantity to measure success are maybe come from the Outside Curriculum.
Students may learn the this kind of worldview outside classroom (ie. from their parents ).

We cannot underestimate the influence of the knowledge students gain from outside world
 What about
rewards for

Observation 2 (O2): students with

SEN?

School A (P.5)

The teacher supports a student with SEN (John) both academically and
socially.
O2: Supporting students with SEN

In class:
● Give out treats, e.g. chocolate, to encourage John to continue with and/or complete his classwork
○ E.g. ‘John, if you finish this piece of writing in class, I’ll give you a piece of chocolate.’1
After class:
● Communicate with John’s mom2
● Arrange social activities, e.g. board game sessions, and invite John along with some of his classmates to
participate

1
The school designs easier versions of worksheets (with keywords highlighted) for students who require more support.

2
The teacher communicates with John’s mom to find out John’s hobbies and interests → give out rewards according to John’s
likings, i.e., food. The teacher also ‘reports’ John’s class performance to John’s mother regularly, and discusses methods to
support John both at school and at home with John’s mom.
 O2: Analysis (How does the teacher support students with SEN?)
● Features of students with ASD (Chung, 2010)
○ Constantly ‘in a world of his own’
■ John displays difficulty paying attention to the teacher and his work. He would also laugh to
himself sometimes (probably due to the imaginary scenarios in his mind).
○ Tend to develop restricted and repetitive behaviour, rituals and obsessions
■ John has a particular interest in transport, and was exceptionally attentive and participative when
the teacher was teaching a unit on transport.
○ Many have problems with social relationships due to theory of mind deficits
■ John does not really understand social relations and rarely interacts with his classmates.

● Use of extrinsic motivation

○ Use external rewards (treats that are targeted at John’s interest in food → personalisation) to motivate
John to complete his classwork
However, the effect of external rewards were only effective sometimes. On several occasions, John would only be motivated to
complete his work for the first 5 minutes, then he will go back to his own world.

It might arouse jealousy in John’s classmates because John constantly receives ‘extra’ rewards even though he produces the same
amount / quality of work as everyone else.
 O2:Analysis (cont.)

● Catering for diversity

○ Curriculum content adaptations
■ Address educationally relevant differences - differentiated resource material, i.e. worksheets

John displays difficulty completing the assignments despite having ‘easier’ versions of worksheets already. What else can be done,
e.g. pedagogically, to support John’s learning?

○ Supporting students’ social development

■ The board game sessions assist John in fostering friendship and building his social circle
● Enable students to understand and respect individual differences
Observation 3 (O3): A classroom without rewards

School B (P.6)

When doing classwork, one-third of the class is not motivated and simply
wait for answers.
O3: a classroom without rewards
Students' learning:
● limited English proficiency
○ many students are new immigrants and started learning English quite late
○ they either sit idly or write very slowly when they are given time to work on the questions --> wait for
answers to show up on screen
● little active participation
○ more capable students work at their own pace, but are not motivated to volunteer when the teacher invites
students to share answers (they wait to be called)
○ students seldom raise their hands to ask questions or seek help when the teacher is patrolling the
classroom

Teacher’s practice:
● No reward system in place
○ teacher tried giving out small gifts (e.g. keychains / toys) before but later noticed that P.6 students are not
really motivated by small gifts → stop giving out rewards regularly
● No consequence for students who copy answers
○ teacher sometimes encourages students: "Try! Don't just copy the answers!" → not very effective + difficult
for the teacher to closely supervise each student
O3: Analysis (Why aren’t students motivated?)
● Low self-efficacy
○ Some students do not expect success because their background as “newly arrived students” from China
justifies their poor performance in English
○ students perceive English as too difficult and give up trying (self-fulfilling prophecy)
- Teachers should help students expect success (even small successes like completing one blank on their own).
- Negative emotions (like frustration) could be easily modelled, so we should avoid displaying emotions like disappointment or
frustration when students can't complete the task.

● Lack of intrinsic motivation

○ Pedagogic planning: tight teaching schedule → no time for scaffolded activities / group work →
transmission approach rather than constructivist approach → students are not intrinsically motivated

● Lack of the right form of extrinsic motivation

○ Students who catch up with class work are not rewarded → no indication of competence
○ If small gifts do not motivate students → how about other forms of reward? e.g. more praise

- Constructivist approach doesn't necessarily take up more time. Letting students work in pairs / groups may help motivate both
capable students (giving them a sense of responsibility as "mini teachers") and students who need more help (learning from their
peers).
- Rewards only work as extrinsic motivation when they truly interest the students → I can try to understand the students and find
out what they like → choosing the right presents
O3: Analysis (cont.)
● Classroom practices reinforce undesirable behaviour
○ teacher always type all the answers on screen so that students on zoom can also follow the lesson
○ answers displayed on screen + no consequence for copying answers + no rewards
=> demotivation because students see no big difference between trying and not trying in class
→ undesirable behaviour (copying answers) reinforced
Part 3. Takeaways - What have we learnt from SE and EI?
● Awareness of the hidden curriculum of any classroom practice O1
○ (positive or negative) messages or ideas may be unintentionally learnt by students
■ Expected positive impacts: positive reinforcement, encourage desirable behaviour, extrinsic motivation
■ Unexpected: jealousy, losing intrinsic motivation of learning
○ Teachers should observe and review carefully the effects of their practices and make amendments when
necessary

● Do not underestimate the influence of outside curriculum O1

○ Students can learn a lot of things outside the classroom
■ values from their parents
■ Universal world view like “materialism” in the adult world
○ The outside knowledge can help or worsen students’ learning in school
○ Teachers sometimes need to pay attention to students and their interaction inside or outside classroom
■ Prevent “snowball effect” on classroom management issue

● Balance between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation O1 O3

○ Rewards materialize teachers’ recognition for younger children, who may not immediately see the long-term
value of academic achievements
○ If teacher heavily relies on extrinsic motivation → learning has no intrinsic value to students
○ When rewards are removed / no longer find tangible rewards appealing → students are no longer extrinsically
motivated → demotivated to learn
○ Alternative: e.g. praise → help students build up a sense of ownership → intrinsic motivation
 Part 3. Takeaways - What have we learnt from SE and EI? O2
● Forms of motivation we can use to facilitate students’ learning (in relation to students with SEN)
○ Extrinsic – Produces immediate behaviour modification effects; but effects are inconsistent + over-
reliance takes away value of learning
○ Achievement – Might not be applicable to students with SEN. Academic pursuits might not be their top
priority.
■ E.g. John has limited intellectual ability → consistently poor academic performance.
○ Intrinsic – Highly dependent on 1. type of SEN, 2. the student’s characteristics
■ E.g. Students with ASD tend to have restricted interests → difficult to develop interest in all
topics.
○ Social - Genuine, immediate, specific praise encourages behaviour modification in students with SEN
■ E.g. ‘I appreciate your attentiveness in class today!’ → encourages desired behaviour, i.e.,
paying attention in class.

Every student with SEN, even for those who are under the same diagnosis, is different. We have to know our students well in order
to ‘tailor’ our motivation strategies. E.g. I might adopt both extrinsic and social motivation strategies to encourage John to modify his
behaviour (i.e. paying attention in class).

● Role of teachers
O2 ○ Not just focus on academics, but also on students’ personal growth and development.
■ Bridge relationship between students
■ Create an inclusive classroom environment
 Part 3. Takeaways - What have we learnt from SE and EI?
O1 O2 O3
● Differentiation to cater for diversity
○ Teacher adjusts task difficulty → working in students’ Zone of Proximal Development → boost curiosity → increase
intrinsic motivation
○ Theory-practice gap: it is not easy for teachers to determine the ZPD of each students and design tasks of optimal
difficulty
■ teacher can monitor students' progress in class to flexibly vary the degree of scaffolding they provide (e.g. giving
more hints if students are struggling)
○ Differentiated instructions
■ E.g. use simpler language for students with SEN
■ for more capable students: work on more challenging tasks (e.g. 1-2 extra opinion questions that allow free
expression)
■ e.g. for students who need more support: work on achievable tasks / receive extra guidance (e.g. students can
choose to work on a template provided by the teacher rather than writing from scratch)
○ Varying expectations with what students with SEN will produce
■ E.g. Not expected to produce the same amount / quality of work
● Heavy amount of homework / homework is too difficult → students might feel stressed → reduced
learning motivation.
■ Risk of self-fulfilling prophecy → requires careful balance + teachers state what is expected of students, e.g.
80% of the questions have to be correct à avoid reduced effort.
Implications on the meso-level
● Enhance home-school cooperation
○ Improved communication between parents and teachers → build trust and promote family education → better
understand individual student’s needs → centralize efforts to cater for diversity
■ E.g. Teachers can make use of sunshine calls to understand the family background / upbringing of his/her
students → offer adequate support.

● Teachers as lifelong learners

○ Familiarise with the subject knowledge → incorporate method and language in their teaching
○ Use guided language as too many metalanguage will make students confused and feel demotivated
○ Use positive reinforcement to encourage desirable behaviour and avoid using punishments
○ Teacher’s professional development
■ Schools can organise training workshops for teachers
● E.g. Methods to engage students with SEN in the classroom

● Curriculum aspect
○ Include more interactive and stress-free tasks or activities in the implemented curriculum to intrinsically motivate
students to learn
○ More contextualised way to introduce declarative knowledge
■ Forms other than written text (eg. video, audio, picture…)
○ More creative way to present content knowledge
■ School-based materials with more contextualised and creative text and illustration
Implications on the macro-level
● Schools play an important role in helping newly arrived students (and their families) to integrate into the
society
○ Functionalist view: school is where those newly arrived students “assimilate” into the dominant local culture
(e.g. using Cantonese in daily conversations, joining field trips that help students understand their community)
→ social integration and solidarity
■ However, my observation was that even local students start using Mandarin to communicate with the
new immigrants → Mandarin (instead of Cantonese) becomes the most-used language in class
■ → in HK’s context, it is debatable which culture is considered to be “subordinate” or “dominant” (local
HK culture vs culture of mainland China)

● Reward systems in school teach students the social norm of “achievement”

○ At school: students are judged by their performance → rewarded by teachers
○ In society: one is judged by one’s performance → rewarded by money, social status, power……
What we need to learn more before PP
Observation 1:

Characteristic of students School policy to support students with

SEN
● Focus more on Educationally Relevant
Differences ● Equality or Equity?
- Family support
- Reading ability ● Any extra material resources?
- Self-esteem (high or low achiever) - Supplementary worksheet
- Social skills
- Ability or disability ● Sufficient human resources?
- Social worker
- Professional teachers
What we need to learn more before PP

Observation 2: Observation 3:

• As a pre-service teacher, how can I ● What type of learners are my

form good teacher-student
students? Can the use of more
relationships?
• How might I adapt my teaching pictures / audios / videos / games
methods in order to cater for learner arouse their interest in learning
diversity in the classroom? English?
• How can I develop an inclusive
atmosphere in the classroom? ● Do the school and parents support
• Apart from academic knowledge, differentiated instructions within the
what other messages/skills can I same class? Do I, as a new
‘teach’ my students?
teacher, have the flexibility to
modify the teaching materials?
References
Biggs, J., & Watkins, D. (2010). Motivating students to learn. In L. F. Zhang, J. Biggs & D. Watkins (Eds.), Learning and
development of Asian students: What the 21st Century teacher needs to think about (pp. 79-107). Singapore:
Prentice Hall.

Chung, K. (2010). Meeting students with special needs. In LF. Zhang, D. Watkins, & J. Biggs (Eds.). Learning and
development of Asian students (pp.143-166). Prentice Hall.

Feinberg, W., & Soltis, J.F. (2004). The functionalist perspective on schooling. In School and Society. (4th ed., pp. 15-28).
New York: Teachers College Press.

Lo, M.L., Morris, P. & Che, M.W. (2000). Catering for diversity. In B. Adamson, T.K.L. Kwan & K.K. Chan (Eds) Changing
the curriculum: The impact of reform on primary schooling in Hong Kong (pp.217-242). Hong Kong: University of
Hong Kong Press.

Morris, P., & Adamson, B. (2010). Studying the Curriculum. In Curriculum, Schooling and Society in Hong Kong (pp. 1-15).
Hong Kong: HKU Press.