Alabama Reading Initiative and statewide fatherhood support programs

Initiatives ND Motivation

Initiatives & Motivation

Alabama Statewide Initiatives

The Alabama Reading Initiative

The Alabama Reading Initiative (ARI) began as project of the State Board of Education and the State Department of Education. After the ARI showed promise in classrooms across the state the Alabama State Legislature allocated funding for its expansion. The ARI is a K-12 initiative. The goal of the ARI is to improve reading instruction and achieve 100% literacy among public school students. The ARI provides differentiated levels of support, including professional development, onsite support, and school coaches to over 1,000 schools. The initiative focuses on three aspects of the teaching of reading: preventing reading difficulties, identifying struggling readers and intervention strategies to help them become proficient readers, and expanding the reading power of all students (Alabama Department of Education, 2012).

Expectancy Theory

The Expectancy theory of motivation describes the process people use to evaluate the likelihood that their effort will yield the desired outcome and the degree to which they want the outcome. This theory suggests that students use three factors to determine the degree of effort to put forth. First is the individual's assessment that an effort will lead to job performance. Second is the value or reward of the outcome to the individual. Third is the individual's assessment of how likely a successful task performance will lead to a desired reward (Kurtz, 2010). This theory provides practical guidelines to motivate students.

Equity Theory

Equity theory is concerned with the individual's perception of fair and equitable treatment. If students feel they are under rewarded for their work in comparison to others doing similar work this theory suggests they will decrease their effort to restore balance. Conversely, if students feel they are over rewarded they will feel guilty and put more effort into their job to restore equity and reduce guilt (Kurtz, 2010).

Goal Setting Theory

Goal setting theory states that students will be motivated to the extent to which they accept specific, challenging goals and receive feedback that indicated their progress toward goal achievement. The basic components of goal setting theory are goal specificity, goal difficulty, goal acceptance, and performance feedback. Goal specificity is the extent to which goals are detailed, exact and unambiguous. Goal difficulty is the extent to which a goal is hard or challenging to accomplish. Goal acceptance is the extent to which students consciously understand and agree to goals. Performance feedback is information about the quality or quantity of past performance and indicates whether progress is being made toward accomplishing a goal. Goal setting theory suggests that students who have goals outperform students who do not (Kurtz, 2010).

Condron (2012) suggests specific activities teachers may incorporate in the classroom to motivate student achievement: praise students in big ways and small, expect excellence, spread excitement like a virus, mix it up, assign class room jobs, hand over some control, relate lessons to student's lives, track improvement, and reward positive behaviors outside the classroom. Teachers have a tremendous amount of influence on student motivation; their behavior has the power to motivate students to excellence.