Ability and Willingness

The direction of readiness to be successful level for a student is a function of both ability and willingness.

Ability has three components: knowledge, experience, and skill. Similarly, willingness has three elements: confidence, commitment, and motivation. One convenient way to assess ability and willingness of a student is to use simple rating chart. Use a scale from +, +, +, +, +, + for the six different pieces (knowledge, experience, skill and confidence, commitment, motivation) reflecting a high level of readiness, to -, -, -, -, -, - for the six pieces reflecting a low level of readiness . . . and every combination in between.

I use a simple grid check sheet, with the student names on the left and boxes for each of the six components. Especially at the beginning of the school year. I will fill out a new sheet each day for the first few days of the school year. This provides a very quick and easy way to begin gathering data (albeit anecdotal data) about my students.

Determining the readiness level of your students is very important. For example, involvement and participation in decision making with people at extremely low levels of readiness might be characterized by a pooling of ignorance; therefore, directive leadership has a higher probability of success. The teacher's task is to help raise the readiness level of every student, so that they can effectively be involved in the decision making. In order for this to happen, the teacher must be purposeful and have a plan. A goal without a plan is a wish.