Motivation

Of all the subjects that we looked at and researched, this is the foundation to engagement, positive learning environments and active learning, which were in themselves separate topics.

Motivation is a theoretical construct to explain reason or a reason that we engage; Interest or enthusiasm. Brophy and Cross concluded that there is expectancy multiplied with value is a good measure of motivation.

There are two types of Expectancy though.

·         Controlled – dependent on effort, and the outcome is not to chance

·         Non-controlled – luck, chance, not dependant on any amount of effort

It was found that if students expectancy was controlled, they were more motivated to succeed. Low probability of success is an outcome because there is a perceived non-controlled expectancy. Students that think there is no way to learn will not learn.

The other aspect of motivation is value. Many students that did not perceive the value of their lessons had lower motivation to achieve.  In this case, their concepts were not grasped, they could not see how they would utilize the lessons, or they thought the material irrelevant.

Thankfully there were many ideas to influence motivation. Our text suggest to

1.       Promote synergy by creating community in the classroom – this comes from the idea of social media and cell phone use. It is very important for many students to Tweet, text, blog, and update their status on other social media. By encouraging this type of community, it will inherit this motivational activity into a learning environment. This works if you Tweet, text and use social media. It is the motivation of socializing.

2.       Helping students work on optimal level of challenge – It is found (McKeachie) that tasks that are too easy to preform do not challenge the student enough for engagement. Challenging the student with assignments helps keep engagement and more motivation. This can be aided by

a.       feedback,

b.      assessments (summative, formative, educative and authentic)

c.       teaching metacognitive skills

d.      empowering students as partners in their learning

3.       Teaching holistically – this helps the student use their work in a broader sense, outside of just learned facts or skills. If they are able to use their newly acquired skills. This is done by engaging in several domains

a.       Affective domain – how the student feels which includes memory and learning

b.      Psychomotor domain – the physical learning aspects of the learning.

c.       Cognitive domain – what it means to the student, or how they understand it

Thankfully we have a whole book on motivational techniques, and to put them all into this report is a bit redundant. However, there were some categories that were used. The value of these techniques are up to social values and the engagement techniques. We are just looking at engagement in order to promote motivation.

• ·         Our first set of techniques use Knowledge, skills, recall and understanding – this is good for the thinking student
• ·         Our next set are analysis and critical thinking – this is good for interpretation
• ·         Next is synthesis and creative thinking – similar to the last, but with the idea of creativity based on the understanding of the lesson
• ·         We have problem solving – this utilizes the skills learned in the class to solve set problems
• ·         Application and performance – another creative idea but with application of set skills
• ·         Attitude and values – works on the affective domain previously talked about
• ·         Self-awareness as learners – is a developmental technique
• ·         Learning and study skills – is also developmental with practical applications to further learning