Chapter 12: Motivation

Chapter 12: Summary



The Behavioral View of Motivation



Behavioral view of motivation: reinforce desired behaviors.

Students are motivated to complete a task by being promised a reward of some kind. (praise, grade, token, or a priviledge)



Disadvantages:

• overuse or misuse of these techniques


• extrinsic motivation- the learner decides to engage in an activity to earn a reward that is not inherently related to the activity


• undermining effect (intrinsic motivation falls when students must compete for a limited supply of rewards; it may rise when the reward consists of positive verbal feedback and is available to all who meet the standard)

Intrinsic motivation- the student will study or acquire a skill because it produces such inherently positive consequences as becoming more knowledgeable, competent, and independent.

Extrinsic motivation can be dangerous because:

• changes in behavior may be temporary


• students may develop a materialistic attitude toward learning


• giving students extrinsic rewards for completing a task may lesson whatever intrinsic motivation they may have for that activity

Give rewards sparingly, especially on tasks of natural interest.

The Social Cognitive View of Motivation

2 factors influence motivation to learn

1. the models to which people are exposed


2. people's sense of self-efficacy (how capable they believe they are to handle a particular task)

So the social cognitive view of motivation is to observe and imitate admired models and raise self-efficacy.

vicarious reinforcement- we expect to receive the same reinforcer that we see someone else get for exhibiting a particular behavior

Choice of learning goals:

1. task mastery goal: doing what is necessary to learn meaningfully the information and skills that have been assigned


2. performance-approach goals: demonstrating to teachers and peers one's superior intellectual ability by outperforming most others in class


3. performance-avoidance goals: reducing the possibility of failure so as not to appear less capable than other students

Self-handicapping behaviors: allow students to blame poor performance on the circumstances rather than on one's ability (such as putting off homework, studying superficially for an exam, getting involved in many in-school and out-of-school nonacademic activities)

Self-efficacy affects choice of goals, expectations of success, attributions for success and failure.

Other Cognitive Views of Motivation

Cognitive development view of motivation: strive for equilibration and master the environment

Need for achievement revealed by desire to attain goals that require skilled performance. Individuals with a high need for achievement have a stronger expectation of success than they do a fear of failure formost tasks and therefore anticipate a feeling of pride in accomplishment.

High-need achievers prefer moderately challenging tasks.

Low-need achievers prefer very easy or very hard tasks.

The four most commonly given reasons for why they did or did not do well: (Attribution theory)

1. ability


2. effort


3. task difficulty


4. luck

Unsuccessful students attribute success to luck and easy tasks; failure to lack of ability.

Successful students attribute success to effort and ability; failure to lack of effort.

There are two points where noticeable changes in children's ability conceptions occur: between 7-8 and 10-12

Students can be placed into one of three categories based on their beliefs about the nature of cognitive ability:

1. Entity theorists- they talk about intelligence as if it were a thing, or an entity, that has fixed characteristics


2. Incremental theorists- intelligence can be improved gradually by degrees or increments as they refine their thinking skills and acquire new ones


3. Mixed theorists- subscribe to both entity and incremental theories

Students with incremental beliefs tend to have mastery goals and are motivated to meaningfully learn, improve skills.

Students with entity beliefs tend to have performance goals and are motivated to get high grades, avoid failure.

A person's interest in a topic can come from personal or situational sources.

Personal interest marked by intrinsic desire to learn that persists over time; situational interest is context dependent and short term.

Personal interest may be influenced by one or more of the following factors:

• ideas and activities that are valued by one's culture or ethnic group


• the emotions that are aroused by the subject or activity


• the degree of competence one attains in a subject or activity


• the degree to which a subject or activity is perceived to be relevant to achieving a goal


• level of prior knowledge


• a perceived hole in a topic that the person already knows a good deal about

Factors that influence situational interest:

• a state of cognitive conflict or disequilibrium


• well-written reading material


• the opportunity to work on a task with others


• the opportunity to engage in hands-on activities


• the opportunity to observe influential models


• the teacher's use of novel stimuli


• the teacher's use of games and puzzles

Flow is the mental state of high engagement in an activity. It is characterized by intense concentration, sustained interest, and enjoyment of the activity's challenge.

It is often difficult to arouse cognitive disequilibrium (such as when they have to go through dull and unrewarding information to answer)

Need for achievement difficult to assess on basis of short-term observations.

Faulty attributions difficult to change

The Humanistic View of Motivation

Maslow's theory of Growth Motivation: need gratification

5-level hierachy of needs: physiological, safety, belongingness and love, esteem, and self-actualization (the lower a need is in the hierachy, the greater its strength; because when a lower-level need is activated people will stop trying to satisfy the higher-level needs)

Deficiency needs: physiological, safety, belongingness and love, and esteem (they motivate people to act only when they are unmet to some degree)

Growth need: self-actualization (people constantly strive to satisfy it)

Maslow also describes cognitive needs (the needs to know and understand) and aesthetic needs (the needs for order, symmetry, or harmony) besides the above 5

When deficiency needs are not satisfied, a person is likely to make bad choices.

Encourage growth choices by enhancing attractions, and minimizing dangers.

Teachers may be able to satisfy some deficiency needs but not others.

The Role of Self-Perceptions in Motivation

Maslow, Rogers, and Combs stressed that how students see and judge themselves and others plays an important part in determining how motivated they are and how much they learn.

Self-esteem is global judgment we make of self; self-concept is judgment we make of self in specific domains; self-efficacy is belief in our ability to carry out a specific action.

Self-concept and achievement have reciprocal effects. Not only does prior achievement affect children's academic self-concept, but also the current strength of a child's academic self-concept influences subsequent achievement.

Teachers should design instructional programs that are aimed directly at improving both academic self-concept and achievement

Motivating Students with Technology

Extrinsic vs. intrinsic motivation

• the best combine both approaches (Jasper Woodbury series


• membership in multimedia clubs, special computer events and fairs for parents or the community, and certficates of recognition

Using technology to increase motivation to learn

• Technology increases intrinsic motivation by making learning more interesting and meaningful


• Students were more inclined to complete their projects and to do high-quality work when they knew it would be seen by a wider audience


• Email is often used to heighten student interest and motivation through pen-pal projects that links students in different countries or locales or to coordinate interest groups

Suggestions For Teaching in Your Classroom: Motivating Students to Learn

p.421- 428

1. Use behavioral techiniques to help students exert themselves and work toward remote goals: (a) give praise as positive reinforcement, but do so effectively; (b) use other forms of positive reinforcement Ex. on page 421 (happy faces, check marks, personal comments, reward menu based on the Grandma's rule)
2. Make sure that students know what they are to do, how to proceed, and how to determine when they have achieved goals (personal contracts with students)
3. Encourage low-acheiving students to attribute success to a combination of ability and effort and failure in insufficient effort (make sure they have the ability to succeed)
4. Encourage students to think of ability as a set of cognitive skills that can be added to and refined, rather than as a fixed entity that is resistant to change, by praising the processes they use to succeed.
5. Encourage students to adopt appropriate learning goals: (a) help students to develop mastery learning goals; (b) use cooperative learning methods (STAD: Student Teams-Achievement Divisions- includes a 4 step cycle Teach, Team Study, Test, Recognition)
6. Maximize factors that appeal to both personal and situational interest: (a) find out what your students' interests are and design as many in-class and out-of-class assignments as possible around those interests; (b) try to associate subjects and assignments with pleasureable rather than painful experiences by using techniques such as cooperative learning and constructivist approaches to teaching, as well as providing students with the information-processing tools they need to master your objectives; (c) link new topics to information students are already likely to have or provide relevant background knowledge in creative yet understandable ways; (d) select reading materials that are logically organized and written in an engaging style.
7. Try to make learning interesting by emphasizing activity, investigation, adventure, social interaction, and usefulness. (www.jasonproject.org, www.learner.org/jnorth, www.thinkquest.org, http://quest.classroom.com )

Activities:

• give a few students a set of problems to do on the board rapidly as well as those at their desk; then have them switch out
• find ways for students to go out of the classroom for learning

Investigations:

• Elementary: learning centers with themes such as library, games, social sciences (lots of maps, charts and documents), cultural appreciation, and computer use (educational software, database programs, student created publications, computer with Internet access with a list of appropriate and interesting online sites)
• Middle School: centers that pertain to different aspects of a single subject Ex. Science (appreciation center stressing aesthetic aspects of science, display center showing new developments in science, library center with attractive and provocative books)

Adventures:

• redecorate the room to match what they are studying the next day
• twenty questions about things in a newspaper; students compete to see who can answer the most questions accurately in the shortest amount of time

Social Interactions:

• students pair up to ask each other questions before an exam or for difficult material
• organize an end-of-unit extravaganza where students present or display projects then maybe celebrate with refreshments

Usefulness:

• continually point out what is being learned can be used outside the class and have students keep a record of how they will use them
• develop exercises that make students aware that what they learn has transfer value; job applications in writing class, balance a checkbook in math class, fill out a tax form or make a budget in math class, biology students will use their knowledge to figure out how they will use it to not get sick

Suggestions for Teaching in Your Classroom: Satisfying Deficiency Needs and Strengthening Self-Perceptions

1. Make learning inviting to students
2. Direct learning experiences toward feelings of success in an effort to encourage an orientation toward achievement, high self-esteem, and a strong sense of self-efficacy and academic self-concept: (a) make use of objectives that are challenging but attainable and, when appropriate, that involve student input, (b) help students master your objectives

Life Experiences:

If students are not motivated, they are not going to learn. I know that when I had teachers that just pushed facts and information and not the reason why I needed to know it, or made it worth learning I just did not do as well as if they had tried to motivate me. I think that motivation is one of the most important parts of teaching. It takes a special person to go the extra effort to make their students want to learn and give them a reason to enjoy it. In my classroom, if my students do not want to help themselves then how can I ever truly help them. We must give them the reasons why they need it, and not just because "I said so".

Blog:

I am still using this blog to help me organize all the great information that I get from this class. But, I am trying to begin to use the idea of blogs in many different areas. My daughters are very smart children and they need extra things to help them receive continued enrichment in other things. I am beginning to teach them how to create their own blogs, like a daily journal. They can write their thoughts, wants, wishes, problems, and anything else that is on their mind. They are learning how to express themselves while also learning about technology.

Question of the Week:

Find another school district's website (this will be your fourth) outside of your hometown and/or Springfield (or the city you reside). Make sure that this school district is in a different state. Copy and paste (or type) the link into your blog. Answer the following questions about the school district in your blog:
Why would you want to teach in this particular school district?
What makes this school district stand out from others that you found on the Internet?
Are there specific features that this school district has to offer that you hadn't thought of before? What are they? If not, what would you like?
Would you ever consider applying for a job at this school district? Why or why not?
Based on what we've learned so far in this class, how does this school district measure up?

Campbell County School District in Gillete, WY http://www.ccsd.k12.wy.us/

This school district is a very large district that is divided up into many different smaller schools, approximately 20. I have lived here before and it is a nice area. I did not like the winters but we did like the landscape of this area and of the area around Sheridan. I like being close to my whole family so I would not want to have to move their unless my husband's job called for it. There are many schools in this area to choose from which helps, because many of them have drug problems. Their website was very informative. Most websites do not even focus on the Special Education part of the school, they just tell you about each of the different grade levels. Their website had alot of information about their special education department which I really liked. They use technology in many different areas and they have more specialist for these disabled students than most schools around here in our rural area.