In my readings on motivation, one of
the first things that caught my eye was providing a secure
environment, meaning a place where the students feel safe failing –
not in all of their assignments, but where they can understand that
failure is sometimes a step in the learning process – and that
there is no penalty for failure.
To me, that is something huge. Growing
up in a family that kept getting larger (I am 3rd of 10
children), both failure and success were common things we dealt with.
It is hard to always win at everything when you have older siblings
better than you at whatever you were playing, and younger ones who
would cry if they always lost. When I got to school and met more
kids, I learned of some whose parents would not accept anything less
than perfection, and how hard it was on those kids. So the idea of
making sure that all students know that failure does not mean the end
of the world is fantastic.
And a good application for this is
something else that I read; No Questions Asked coupons. These little
cards are something you can give out to your students as part of the
syllabus (one per student) that allows them to turn in an assignment
late, “no questions asked” or no penalty. The coupons can only
be redeemed once and each student can only use one (cuts down on the
student black market for them). The reading suggests that if a
student never uses it, a bonus can be given.
Another part that I thought was
interesting was a section that discussed William Glasser's The
Quality School. Glasser thinks that teachers should be more like
project or management leads than bossy, meaning that they should lead
and guide students rather than just telling them what to do. In this
way, a teacher can focus on helping students learn problem solving
skills and on helping them be motivated to do good quality work. To
me it seems a bit strange to think of a teacher as mid-level
management and the students as entry-level employees, but perhaps
this is closer to the way things should be. If we did think of
school in this way, it would certainly help students prepare for
entering the work force much better than they are right now.
I imagine this would be easier for a
Tech teacher than for many of the other teachers. In Tech Education,
we are already teaching students skills that can be applied to a
career, as we lean more towards hands-on learning. To me, it would
not be a large leap to run a classroom like a business, with people
rotating tasks to make sure they all learn everything. That would be
an interesting experiment.
It also leads into another thought that
I found interesting: fantasy. This is where you introduce an element
of fantasy into the learning environment. In the above experiment,
students could imagine that they were being employed and doing work
(or on the job training). This can allow students to find their own
level of interest, and thus help with their motivation.
Another thing that caught my eye was
using non-controlling feedback. The idea is that you phrase your
comments and feedback in such a way that you remove any words that
indicate you are trying to control them. For example, saying that a
student should or must do their homework. I can see this being a big
challenge, since most of the instruction that I can recall growing up
was more like controlling feedback: Kevin, you need to do _________,
and so on. But I can recall some people in my life trying to use
non-controlling feedback when conversing with either myself or others
that I was able to observe. Phrasing it such as: I have noticed that
this is not going well for you. What is going on? How do you think
you can do better? I even remember a math professor asking me why I
thought I was not doing well on the tests, since my participation in
class was high and my homework was, for the most part, good. The
answer to that was that, in general, math tests and I are not
friends.
But I can see how effective that idea,
using the non-controlling feedback, can be. It empowers the student
to take control of their own education, stimulates them to consider
different influences in their life that could be negatively affecting
their academic performance. Used properly, this could help students
feel at ease around you as well, as they would not see you as someone
else trying to dictate everything that happens in their life.
One word of caution that I saw said
that if you decide to use extrinsic motivation of some kind, make
sure it is never perceived as a bribe. All of my reading on the
subject seems to agree on this point. Extrinsic motivation is useful
only up to a point, and only for short term effects. If it is ever
used as a bribe, motivation goes down. So, in the classroom,
research indicates that extrinsic motivational techniques, such as
rewards or permission to do something, should be used to drive
towards intrinsic motivation.
Again, from my life, I had grown up
learning and then knowing that if you really love something or are
really interested in something, you generally do better in that
subject than in a class where you do not understand anything or have
no interest in the subject.
I have been fortunate to have a large
variety of interests, but I have had classes that did not really
interest me, which have been a struggle. Fortunately, I never had
the teacher that would drone on and on about a topic. They all did
well at trying to engage everyone in the topic, and that held me
through each one.
I do like how one segment that I read
mentioned that teachers need to be motivated as well. Imagine a
teacher trying to motivate students when they had no motivation
themselves. Seems rather silly, but I am sure it happens, though
most likely without much success. Teachers have an even greater need
to be motivated in what they do. A highly motivated teacher who
demonstrates a passion for the topic can help students to feel some
of that passion, which can help them to gain an interest in the
topic. We always need to take care of ourselves, making sure we show
a good example of motivation for what we teach, and thus help the
students to gain that interest, in wanting to learn if nothing else.
All this reading and thinking has me
pondering my own life right now. With my children, I now wonder if
there are better ways of handling difficult situations. Looking back
I can see how different situations have led to my children feeling
motivated about something we were doing. I have plans on using some
of what I have learned (and mentioned above) in motivating my
children in things they want to learn and things that I know they
need to learn.
A way of increasing motivation that can
be applied to all levels of life, either personal, familial, or in
the classroom is setting goals. If students can learn to break a
difficult task down into manageable components, they will be so much
better prepared for the real world. I have already begun this with
my children when they are asked to clean up their toys. They almost
immediately feel overwhelmed and do not want to try. But if I set
them on the task of picking up just a certain type of toy, they work
happily on that task, knowing that it is not that hard. We then move
from type to type until everything is done.
This can also be applied to the
classroom. We can teach students to take the syllabus at the
beginning of the year and set goals as to when certain tasks such as
homework assignments or projects should be done to a certain
percentage, or completed, then they can feel better prepared, and
thus more motivated to completing the assignments. Or, with more
granularity, a single project, if large enough, can seem daunting,
such as a large research paper. We can help students learn how to
break it up in to manageable pieces and set goals for each of the
smaller ones. This will help them not only feel better about being
able to accomplish the entire project (which raises perceived
confidence), but if they are permitted to set the goals themselves,
this gives them more control (which raises feelings of autonomy).
This should then lead to greater intrinsic motivation.
Last of all, humor is one thing that I
had not considered as something motivating, though it makes sense.
When you add humor to the classroom, you help students relax. It can
help create a safe learning environment. And a safe learning
environment will help students feel comfortable enough to learn. And
that's what it is all about.
