Student Motivation

1
Student Motivation

• Most of the problems of education are problems
  of motivation.
• Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1762

2
Student Motivation

• Most professional development initiatives are
  aimed at enhancing instruction and strengthening
  curriculum.
• In recent years, our ability to instruct has
  improved substantially.
• There is greater consistency in what we teach.
• We deliver content better now than at any time in
  our history.
• What is left is student motivation what some
  call the most important issue in education today.
  
• The sad truth is that too few students work to
  their potential.

3
What We Know

• Fact 1 Young children dont need to be rewarded
  to learn.
• Fact 2 At any age rewards are less effective
  than intrinsic motivation for promoting student
  achievement.
• Fact 3 Rewards for learning undermine intrinsic
  motivation. (Alfie Kohn (1993))

4
Internal Control Psychology

• Based on the belief that people are internally,
  not externally motivated.
• Powerful instructions that are built into our
  genetic structure drive our behavior.
• The outside world, including all rewards and
  punishments, only provides us with information.
  It does not make us do anything.

5
Choice Theory Needs

• Survival
• Belonging or connecting
• Power or competence
• Freedom
• Fun
• William Glassers (1998)

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Need for Belonging/Connecting

• Motivates us to develop relationships and
  cooperate with others.
• Social, cooperative instruction propels us beyond
  independence toward interdependence and
  community.
• Building a spirit of connection and community is
  essential to creating a need-satisfying school
  characterized by high achievement.
• For example, in a teacher-centred mathematics
  classroom that emphasises rules and routines and
  individual drilling, there is little room to meet
  the students needs for autonomy or social
  belonging within the context of mathematics
  learning (Hannula, 2006).

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Need for Power

• More than just a drive to dominate.
• Power is gained through competence, achievement,
  and mastery.
• When we help students develop responsible ways to
  increase their personal power by gaining academic
  competence, they are less likely to seek power in
  destructive ways.
• Achievement motivation is connected to the need
  for power and competence.
• To help students maintain the desire to achieve
  academically, it is imperative to regularly
  remind them of the relevance of what they are
  being asked to learn and to routinely discuss the
  value of academic achievement.

8
Need to be Free/to Choose

• Having choices is part of what it means to be
  human.
• Educators need to foster environments that
  provide adequate freedom for students within
  parameters that are safe, developmentally
  appropriate, and supportive of learning.

9
Need to have Fun

• Each time we learn something new we are having
  FUN.
• A joyless classroom never inspires students to do
  high-quality academic work on a regular basis.
• When teachers and kids are having fun, learning
  is deeper and stronger, and students maintain the
  keen desire to learn that characterizes early
  childhood learning centers.

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Quotes

• In every measure of mental health and happiness
  that we used, the students who did the best were
  connected students (Good, Grumley, Roy, p.
  47).
• In short, a body of case studies and clinical
  narratives directs our attention to the engaging
  but elusive idea of social trust as essential for
  meaningful school improvement (Byrd Schneider,
  2003, p. 41).
• The quality of teacher-student relationships
  is the key for all other aspects of classroom
  management. Classroom management is a key to
  high student achievement. (Marzano Marzano,
  2003, pp 6, 12)

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Our Internal World

• Everything we place in our internal world relates
  to our basic needs.
• It is precisely because it is need-satisfying
  that it becomes part of our internal world.
• What we put into our internal world is what we
  are willing to work for.
• If we hope to inspire more students to do
  high-quality work, we need to create learning
  environments that result in more students putting
  school, learning, and working hard into their
  internal world.
• This occurs when students discover that learning
  helps them connect, be competent, have choices,
  and be free, all in an environment that promotes
  safety and survival.

12
Nonavailing Beliefs

• Beliefs that have no influence or negatively
  affect learning
• Mathematics is based on facts, rules, formulas,
  and procedures.
• Mathematics is mostly about memorizing.
• Mathematical problems should be solved within
  five to ten minutes.
• Mathematics is about getting the right answer.
• Mathematical knowledge is passively handed down
  by some authority figure.
• Mathematics is not useful in daily life.

13
Nonavailing Beliefs

• Computation is the key not derivation.
• Word problems are irrelevant.
• Mathematics is already known and unchanging and
  the various components of mathematics are
  unrelated.
• There is only one correct answer and mathematics
  involves searching for that one answer
• Ability is inherent - only prodigious individuals
  are capable of discovering, creating, or
  understanding it.

14
Nonavailing Beliefs

• Mathematics is already known and unchanging and
  that the various components of mathematics are
  unrelated.
• There is only one correct answer and that
  mathematics involves searching for that one
  answer.
• Formal mathematics (other than , -. x, ) is not
  useful to the task at hand or in daily life as a
  tool or as a skill to enter other fields.
• Ample research has revealed a negative
  relationship between nonavailing beliefs and
  mathematical performance (Muis, 2004).
• (Kloosterman Stage, 1992 Mason, 2003
  Schoenfeld, 1988 Cobb, 1986 Frank, 1988
  McLeod, 1992 Spangler, 1992 Garofalo, 1989a
  Mtetwa Garofalo, 1989 Schoenfeld, 1989
  Schommer-Aikins et al., 2005).

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Mathematics Knowledge Examples

• 10th grade geometry students tended to have
  higher grades if they were less likely to
  emphasize memorization (Schoenfeld,1989).
• Students tended to have higher grades if they
  were less likely to believe that success depends
  on memorization or through step-by-step
  procedures (Schoenfeld,1989.
• Szydliks (2000) study of calculus students also
  revealed that those students who viewed calculus
  as a set of facts and procedures to be memorized
  tended to have an incomplete or contradictory
  understanding of the concept of limits.

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Mathematics Knowledge Examples

• Garofalo (1989a) found that secondary school
  students who believed that almost all mathematics
  problems can be solved by the application of
  facts, rules, formulas, and procedures tended to
  approach mathematical tasks in a mechanical
  manner or by relying on memorization.
• Masons (2003) study revealed that those who
  believed in the importance of understanding
  concepts had higher achievement than those who
  did not believe in the importance of conceptual
  understanding.

17
Nature of Knowing Examples

• Students with external sources of conviction will
  not make sense of mathematical concepts Szydlik
  (2000).
• Students who relied on authority for their
  mathematical knowledge never questioned what was
  taught to them and were reluctant to derive
  mathematical knowledge on their own (Garofalo,
  1989a).
• Students who relied on authority as the main
  source of mathematical knowledge did not perform
  as well on mathematical tasks as those who were
  more self-reliant (Buehl and Alexander, 2005) .
• Schommer-Aikins, et al. (2000) found a positive,
  predictive relationship between students belief
  in gradual learning and GPA scores.

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Nature of Knowing Examples

• Belief in quick learning and belief that
  mathematics is not useful have been shown to have
  a negative relationship with achievement
  (Schommer-Aikins, et al., 2000) .
• Belief in the speed of knowledge acquisition
  influences the time students engage in problem
  solving and thus affects their performance
  (Schommer, 1990).  

19
Usefulness of Math

• The perception of mathematics usefulness also
  affects student effort to learn math (Kloosterman
  Cougan, 1994).
• Schommer- Aikins et al., (2005) study revealed a
  relationship between the two nonavailing beliefs
  of belief in quick learning and belief that
  mathematics is not useful. That is, students who
  believed in quick learning tended to believe that
  mathematics is not useful.
• Results also indicated that belief in quick
  learning was related to less time trying to solve
  problems, and students who believed that
  mathematics is not useful tended to be
  unsuccessful at problem solving (Schommer-
  Aikins et al., 2005) .

20
Role of Confidence

• Measures of confidence have been consistently
  shown to be directly related to academic
  performance in mathematics (Kloosterman et al.,
  1996 McLeod, 1992 Reyes, 1984 Schoenfeld,
  1983 Schoenfeld, 1985). Confidence has been
  studied under various constructs, such as
  self-efficacy, self-concept, and attribution
  style (Mone, Baker, Jeffries, 1995 Pajares
  Kranzler, 1995 Stevens, Olivarez, Lan, 2004).

21
Effective Practices

• A common theme among effective practices is that
  they address underlying psychological variables
  related to motivation, such as competence and
  control, beliefs about the value of education,
  and a sense of belonging. In brief, engaging
  schools and teachers promote students confidence
  in their ability to learn and succeed in school
  by providing challenging instruction and support
  for meeting high standards, and they clearly
  convey their own high expectations for their
  students success.
• They provide choices for students and they make
  the curriculum and instruction relevant to
  adolescents experiences, cultures, and long-term
  goals, so that students see some value in the
  high school curriculum.

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Effective Practices

• Enthusiasm Excitement
• High Expectations
• Choice
• Responsibility
• Emphasizing Positive
• Cooperative Learning
• Encouragement
• Discipline

23
Effective Practices

• Authentic Tasks.
• Genuine Caring.
• Staff Quality and Camaraderie.
• High Standards and Individualized Student Goals.
• Lifelong Learning.
• Student-Led Conferences.

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Reflections of a High School Senior

• Activating the Desire to Learn
• By Bob Sullo
• ASCD, 2007