Incentiveness

Okay, so where would this world be without a little incentive? Without getting into the whole intrinsic motivation type, it is clear that people try to do something, for some reason. I believe most students have the incentive to

1. Get Good Grades
2. Make their parents happy (With Grades)
3. Get a Good Score on the ACT
4. Get into a good College
5. REPEAT 1 & 2
6. Get into good grad school/Med or Law school (if you're really shooting for the stars!)
7. REPEAT 1 & 2
8. Get good job
9. Find good spouse
10. Have 1.6 kids
11. Live in the burbs
12. Own a nice car
13. Own a vacation home
14. Retire with fortune
15. Squander money on grandchildren
16. Die

Now where in here does it say anything about the incentive to be happy? Or to learn something? I'd like to possibly teach my students to have the incentive to learn something in my class for a reason, to be able to apply what they've learned and maybe be happy learning something without the need for stress to follow 1-16.

Reflectiveness

When thinking about improving how I would teach, I think it would be most important to REFLECT on what I taught already. To continually improve my teaching it is necessary to build upon a base, and by reflecting on what exactly I had taught already, I believe that I can further enhance how I teach. To do this I think it would involve:

• Questions: Asking myself, students, and fellow teachers what I did:
• Right
• Wrong
• What could be improved?
• Practice: Take what I did and practice teaching it so I make sure how to understand it
• Honesty: Being honest with my self when reflecting on how I taught will help me truly understand what I need to change to help my students learn