Growth Mindset and Motivation TIPR

In my field work, I see a lot of growth mindset being demonstrated. We are constantly telling kids, good work, you worked so hard, thanks for trying, etc... This is very important in an Autism classroom, as these students need the extra motivation. We try to stay away from telling kids they are wrong and instead just tell them to try again.  When students answer a question incorrectly, we don't give a lot of praise, but still say good trying, or thanks for trying, lets do it again though, and then continue with the activity and when they get an answer correct, you would give more excited sounds praise and saying things like, you did it, good work, your working so hard, awesome lets try again! 

We have a lot of extrinsic motivators in our class, in preschool those are pretty easy to have, just a high five can be extremely motivating for the students, but we also have a lot of simple toys that the students are able to choose what they want to work for before beginning a lesson. We also use a lot of small candies as extrinsic rewards throughout the day to reward good behaviors in students. I think that all of these develop intrinsic motivation in the students because it helps them to learn to be excited. It is really exciting when a student is so happy for themselves when they complete a difficult task on their own. 

We always make sure to develop trust with the students before we beginning working with them. We make sure they know they are 'loved' by us as teachers, make sure they are fed and not hungry, (no one works well on an empty stomach) and that they have had adequate sleep before we do final testing with them also. If they don't have those things, we try to provide them to the students so that they can learn to the best of their abilities. 

I think that there is always more praise that you can give a student. In my own classroom, praise with be a big thing that I will always strive to do more of. I think that the teacher I work with right now does a great job of this also. She is great at providing different ways to motivate each student. I want to be able to do that also as a teacher.