Motivation TIPR
THE QUESTION: Describe how the teacher and/or school motivate students. Give specific examples of both extrinsic and intrinsic motivators. Include vocabulary from specific motivational theories (e.g., Self-determination Theory, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, etc.) and be sure to include a reference in your response.
I spent the entire day, February 10, at my local high school observing Mrs. O, Mr. J, and Mrs. M. I was able to sit down with each of them for few minutes and pick their brains about motivation. Mrs. O felt you had to prove to your students you were actually competent in the subject and once they respected you they would be motivated to accomplish what was needed in your classroom. I feel this attitude comes from her still trying to prove herself as an only second year teacher, which is completely understandable. She also ascribes to the arousal and fun theory. She often rewards her students with improvisation and other games. She also ascribed to goal theory, sitting one on one with students setting goals and letting them know what the expectations are. Her last tip for motivation was sometimes invoking other teachers names. Because she did not as yet have the respect from her students being a new teacher she felt she had to let the kids they were still held to the expectations from a past teacher whom they respected.
Mrs. M is the applied skills teacher I am observing for Exceptional Students. I don't normally include her in these blog posts because it isn't my content area, but her motivation insights were extremely relevant this week. I was observing applied skills math and was impressed for the second week on how much these students respected and liked her. She right off the bat rewarded the students for being on time and attending class. Though these are kids labeled with many names and have IEPs and 504s, they all seemed comfortable in her classroom. She attributed it to the fact that she loves these kind of kids specifically and that they feel that, motivating them to come to her class and stay in school. I observed it was the student/teacher relationship. She never embarrassed students and when questions were answered wrong she used phrases like "I love your logic" instead of being negative. At one point in the class she sat down with the kids as they were complaining about this, that and the other. Mrs. M picked up a piece of paper and a dry erase marker and said "I'm going to teach you a life lesson". She drew a stick figure inside of a circle with some x's inside and outside the circle. It looked roughly like this:
I spent the entire day, February 10, at my local high school observing Mrs. O, Mr. J, and Mrs. M. I was able to sit down with each of them for few minutes and pick their brains about motivation. Mrs. O felt you had to prove to your students you were actually competent in the subject and once they respected you they would be motivated to accomplish what was needed in your classroom. I feel this attitude comes from her still trying to prove herself as an only second year teacher, which is completely understandable. She also ascribes to the arousal and fun theory. She often rewards her students with improvisation and other games. She also ascribed to goal theory, sitting one on one with students setting goals and letting them know what the expectations are. Her last tip for motivation was sometimes invoking other teachers names. Because she did not as yet have the respect from her students being a new teacher she felt she had to let the kids they were still held to the expectations from a past teacher whom they respected.
Mrs. M is the applied skills teacher I am observing for Exceptional Students. I don't normally include her in these blog posts because it isn't my content area, but her motivation insights were extremely relevant this week. I was observing applied skills math and was impressed for the second week on how much these students respected and liked her. She right off the bat rewarded the students for being on time and attending class. Though these are kids labeled with many names and have IEPs and 504s, they all seemed comfortable in her classroom. She attributed it to the fact that she loves these kind of kids specifically and that they feel that, motivating them to come to her class and stay in school. I observed it was the student/teacher relationship. She never embarrassed students and when questions were answered wrong she used phrases like "I love your logic" instead of being negative. At one point in the class she sat down with the kids as they were complaining about this, that and the other. Mrs. M picked up a piece of paper and a dry erase marker and said "I'm going to teach you a life lesson". She drew a stick figure inside of a circle with some x's inside and outside the circle. It looked roughly like this:
She explained that the x's outside the circle represent things outside of our control, "like North Korea, Donald Trump, and the travel ban". She proceeded to make a few x's inside the circle. "But these x's are the D in English or coming to class or being on time. Those are in your control." The kids actually listened to her. She sat and taught them attribution theory in simple terms, and they listened because the felt they belonged in her classroom. Seeing the combination of the theories was exciting and created a lot of thinking on my part. Does Mrs. M have an innate gift or is her skill of making each student feel important something I can actually acquire? Granted she has far less students than most teachers because of her content area, but can I apply her techniques and talents to 200+ kids of my own in the future?
I saw Mr. J at the end of the day and observed his CE US Government class. His class began by playing Constitutional Amendments Jeopardy. The reward for the winning team was a 3x5 card on next week's quiz. Immediately motivating his students with fun, higher arousal levels, and overall extrinsic types of motivation. When I got the chance to talk with him one on one he asked me my opinion and we agreed that intrinsic motivation is especially hard to develop in students once they've reached high school because they have habits already built, but he tries as much as he can to create those situations in which individual interests can occur. He also gives a great deal of autonomy in his classroom by letting students give suggestions on what their current event articles could be about for upcoming weeks. The majority of his students being in upper level high school courses are motivated by grades and parent expectations, which gets in the way a great deal of trying to motivate these students by learning, but he came back once again to the student/teacher relationship. He feels that if the students know he's approachable and human, they will respond and perform.
I left the day thinking about Mr. J had said. "Every student has a button and you have to learn how to push it." It made me think the most about Yerkes-Dodson and finding the balance (see reference https://www.verywell.com/the-arousal-theory-of-motivation-2795380 from verywell.com). Every student is different but when you find the key, whether it be leadership roles, setting goals, or plain fun, they may actually learn something in your class.
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