Instruction to Promote a Love of Learning

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• Instruction to Promote a Love of Learning
• Deborah Stipek

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Interest in Learning
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Definition of Success

• achieving personal
• goals
• mastering new
• skills

• relative performance
• receiving scarce
• rewards/
• opportunities

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Definition of Ability

• Incremental
• specific
• unstable
• acquired through
• effort and
• persistence

• Entity
• general (like IQ)
• stable
• native (you have
• it or you dont)
• effort has limited
• effect

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Goals

• Learning Goals
• master new skills
• develop
• understanding
• get smart

• Performance Goals
• good grades
• recognition
• extrinsic rewards
• look smart

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Consequences of Performance Goals

• Need prodding, extrinsic incentives (rewards),
  punishments
• Learn only what is required
• Learning is superficial, focused on getting the
  right answer
• Avoid challenges, play games, cheat
• Under-perform

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• Drabble Kathy cartoons from Palo Alto Talk

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When Children Enjoy are Focused on Learning
(rather than on performing)

• Take more responsibility for learning
• Seek challenges
• Learn at a deeper, more conceptual level
• More creative/innovative
• Seek learning outside of school, throughout life

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Motivating Learning Contexts

• Choice
• Personally meaningful/authentic tasks
• Just right challenge
• Active, open-ended, multidimensional problem
  solving
• Focus is on learning, understanding, mastering
  skill

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Choice

• Within structure and with accountability
• Necessary to develop planning and organizational
  skills and personal responsibility
• Topics, Tasks, Strategies, Time

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Personally Meaningful

• Choice helps
• Connect to students culture, lives, interests
• Have students ask questions
• Encourage passions

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Real Life Like (Authentic)

• Original sources
• Connecting to home
• Connecting to the community
• Like problems encountered outside of school
• Collaboration (distributed expertise)

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Just Right Challenge

• Hard enough to require effort, improve
  understanding/skills
• more engaging
• for robust self confidence
• Requires individualization
• Strategies
• differentiated tasks
• differentiated expectations
• skill-based, flexible grouping

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Active, Open-ended, Multidimensional

• Open-ended questions-problems
• how? why? explain not what? when?
• Active manipulating, simulating, debating, role
  playing
• Multidimensional (projects)
• Changes teachers role
• Guides rather than directs
• Monitors/supports rather than controls

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Focus on Learning/Understanding

• Focus on understanding, not right answer
• Reward effort/improvement
• Focus evaluation on progress toward achieving
  standard
• Treat errors as natural part of learning
• Press for continued development
• Create community of interdependent learners