Teachers must consider what they really want of students before embarking on a poorly conceived motivation program of rewards. Putting oneself in the place of the learner is often helpful. The best motivation accomplishes more than compliance.
The Ideal Motivation Creates a Positive Attitude about the Subject
Consider the case of an elderly man offering $100 to his yard cleaned. It is ankle-deep in leaves and has numerous fallen limbs to be removed. The job will clearly take all day and a lot of physical exertion. A small-framed twelve-year old neighbor hesitantly agrees to do the job after his father reminds him of a video game station that he wants. He works hard, and collects the $100 and numerous insect bites, blisters, cuts and scratches from the large branches.
He feels great to have $100, but has he changed his mind about yard work? Has the large sum of money caused him to connect with yard work to the point that he might want to do more? Probably not. He was not motivated by a desire to work — he was after the money. The yard work was a barrier he had to overcome.
This example compares closely to what happens with reward programs. The most important thing to take away from the scenario is that the young man was motivated to earn money, just as students who work for rewards can be motivated to earn an irrelevant reward. But students benefit more by connecting positively with the learning task. Such a connection internalizes the motivation so that students have some intrinsic desire to learn.
Motivation is Best when it Helps a Student Connect
Now suppose the young man in the example was watched carefully as he worked by an old man— the owner of the yard — who offered suggestions about how to work more efficiently and with less effort. Suppose he provided better tools that were more suited for the boy’s size and strength and asked him to take frequent breaks to rest. The old man offered encouragement by verbal validation of the difficulty of the task and gave him a choice of finishing the next day if he got too tired.
During the break the owner entertained him by telling stories of how he began making money as a ten year old boy and developed a neighborhood business. He spoke enthusiastically of how he got other boys to work for him and by the time he was twelve, he had a business that allowed him to manage the business and got a part of the money paid to the others for "administrative tasks." He composted the leaves and sold it; large limbs were cut and sold for firewood. He saved enough money to pay for a college business degree. By the time he was twenty-five years old he had a landscaping business and was a millionaire.
Now the young man who labored to clean the old man’s yard may well have formed a different opinion about the yard work, or at least he began to think about how he might be able to follow a similar plan. The pay he received, although important, was soon spent, but the kindness and success story of the old man never left him.
The Great way to Motivate Students is to Make Topics Relevant
When interest in a topic is within the student motivation doesn’t need to be artificially motivated by rewards. The more teachers can do to make a topic relevant, the less they will need to invent some kind of motivation.
Relevance can be accomplished in various ways:
- Knowing something of what individual students are interested in helps the teacher plan lessons to accommodate as many of those interest as possible;
- Differentiation of instruction allows teachers to reach students who may be more difficult to help connect with the topic — this would include understanding how students learn;
- Remove barriers to motivation with an inviting classroom that is well-organized with learning centers and extra reading material;
- Remove personal barriers by being an inviting teacher who uses classroom management techniques that emphasize patience, self-control, and fairness;
- Empower students by allowing choices in assignments:
- Be a story teller — a powerful way to help students connect is to be able to introduce a topic with a well-told and captivating story;
- Use various instructional tools that allow students to learn differently;
- Try to encourage learning as a worthy goal and minimize talking about grades or test performance.
Relate the above list to the way the young man as he worked under the supervision of the old man. The land owner used most of the same techniques. Any teacher who was “pulled into” this article may have continued to read because it was relevant. Motivation can be accomplished quite naturally, but it requires commitment and planning. Teacher in way manner that maximizes intrinsic desire to learn.
Source:
"Motivating Students," serc.carleton.edu.(Accessed: February 13, 2012)
"Intrinsic Motivation," education.calumet.purdue.edu. (Accessed: February 13, 2012)
Harvey Craft - I am a retired educator with diverse experience. I read anything science, education, and history. I write to share what I learn.
