"Interest and Its Contribution as a Mental Resource for Learning" by Suzanne Hidi

After reading the article I was able to really understand the meanings and differences between the two interest perspectives, individual and situational interest. According to the article individual interest is described as “focus on individual differences…focuses on how interest affects most subjects.” As for the situational interest it’s stated in the reading “evoked by certain features or characteristics of stimuli.” Situational interest is also “triggered by some environmental factors…”. Next, I saw that the article also mentioned about a text-based interest. On reading what this was, I found it very interesting and more like what I like to find interesting. Text-based interest is basically an interest people find in text formed readings. For an example, when I find articles, short stories, or scripts I just am so drawn to them if I find the text interesting at the first few lines of the passages. I need text-based materials to pull me in as a reader, if the materials have a dull introduction I am not interesting and move on to another reading.

To this day I can remember to when I was in elementary school, I had my either second or third grade teacher teaching about Christopher Columbus and at first I was not interesting in the topic whatsoever. I was one of those students who preferred English(spelling), Art, or even Math as a kid, not History. However, one day our teacher walked in and right away she was talking like a sailor on a ship or something, I personally thought that she lost it, but from that day on I was pulled into on how she was going to make History very interesting. At the end of the second week about learning about Christopher Columbus my class went out onto a boat(voyage) in Catalina(California) and were able to see how Christopher lived though the times and how he survived and sailed a ship. I thought that was a very interesting way to teach situational interest.

The article was rather general in its attempt to explain and analyze the Interest Perspective, by not providing examples of interest based learning and curriculum. Rather, the article defined Interest as a perspective on learning and the many aspects about it. The article suggests that interests is central in determining how we select and persist in processing certain types of information in preference to others. The article seeks to define a difference between individual interest, and situational interest. Individaul interest is defined to be personal preferences that contribute to cognitive performance. Situational Interest is defined to be what evokes interest, such as certain features, or characterisitcs of stimuli. The article talks about the research done in interest-based activities, and text-based learning which is learning, motivation, and comprehension done by interesting reads. But problems are presented in defining what is interesting generally or to each individual, because it is widely varied.

There are many ways to get the students involved. Which there are four different categories for independent ratings that Hidi goes over in Hidi, S. (1990). Interest and its contribution as a mental resource for learning. Review of Educational Research, 60, 549-571. There are high importance/ high interest like main ideas over a subject, high importance/ low interest like supporting details, low importance/ high interest which is most commonly everyone’s favorite and most easily remembered seductive details. Finally there is low importance/ low interest which can be personal events unrelated to the main ideas. I remember when I was in middle school geography and our teacher was going over the states and capitals we had a song we sang. This video is something that teachers can use to keep their students interest high plus the importance is high in the material as well. http://www.teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=15395&title=50_States_and_Capitals__cartoon_song_

I loved using songs because music is something I enjoy plus it allowed me to remember things better while I was reciting them. Learning from the book was a boring way to remembering useless facts of the states but the textbooks had some personal relations for the students to help them tie what they read to their lives which Hidi said in her article helps the readers retain the information they had just read.