She brought the audition music to the first lesson, and wanted me to help her make the highest band. Goal theory, a part of the motivation concept we covered in this educational psychology course, identifies performance goals as ones where students are focused primarily on their performance instead of their deeper understanding (Ormrod 2006). My student was exhibiting a performance goal. To help her shift her attention to mastery goals, I stressed that our main focus was expanding her musicianship. We began each lesson by working other pieces and scales, then later moved to her audition piece. Here I utilized a concept from cognitive learning theory—the idea that by connecting new information to old knowledge, one is more likely to remember something (Ormrod 2006). I asked her to make connections between the new melodies, scales, and concepts, to her band excerpt. By the end of the summer, her excerpt was polished, she made the higher ensemble, and she was excited to work on new, challenging
She brought the audition music to the first lesson, and wanted me to help her make the highest band. Goal theory, a part of the motivation concept we covered in this educational psychology course, identifies performance goals as ones where students are focused primarily on their performance instead of their deeper understanding (Ormrod 2006). My student was exhibiting a performance goal. To help her shift her attention to mastery goals, I stressed that our main focus was expanding her musicianship. We began each lesson by working other pieces and scales, then later moved to her audition piece. Here I utilized a concept from cognitive learning theory—the idea that by connecting new information to old knowledge, one is more likely to remember something (Ormrod 2006). I asked her to make connections between the new melodies, scales, and concepts, to her band excerpt. By the end of the summer, her excerpt was polished, she made the higher ensemble, and she was excited to work on new, challenging