One of the greatest questions among educators is how to create lifelong learners of our students. These life-long learners are known as “intrinsically motivated learners” and like other intrinsically motivated people they want to learn more because they LIKE TO LEARN. Everyone is intrinsically motivated to do something with their life, for instance I enjoy riding my bike. While others might feel bored sitting on a metal contraption for 40 miles I enjoy the quiet, constant motion, and time to myself. I do not ride my bike to get anywhere or train for a cross country tour (although that would be cool!) I do it simply for the love of riding. Whether is be reading, playing video games, or competing in sports everyone is intrinsically motivated by their hobbies and interests. One of the goals of education is to harness that motivation for learning. With all this talk about convincing kids that they should ENJOY learning what are really doing to help them get their? Are we really providing the right environment to entice them to want to learn or are we just hoping they will want to while sitting quietly in rows? This brings up another type of motivation that sometimes has a bad reputation, extrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivation is an outside force that moves you to complete a task. We are far more familiar with extrinsic motivation than intrinsic because it is much more abundant in the world and in our field of education. Extrinsic motivation is when to provide a reward or consequence in order to entice the appropriate reaction out of the student. A prevalent example of this would be the use of a set of standardized grading criteria in your classroom. Part of the reason (please do not hate me teachers) students want to do well in your classroom or school is because they WANT to earn that “A+” in your class. That grade leads to a higher Grade Point Average which could lead to more college enrollment choices and for many students more merit based scholarship money. When students enter the workforce in jobs they hopefully love doing they will also be working to earn money, an extrinsic motivator. From rewards programs provided by retail stores to deadlines for properly filing your taxes extrinsic motivation plays just as much of a key role in the lives of our students as intrinsic motivation. New educational philosophy and practice are starting to accept that extrinsic motivation may have a positive role in education. These newer ideas are starting to include this crucial aspect of our adult lives in education. These new ideas, such as gamification, are combining extrinsic and intrinsic motivation in the classroom in the hopes that students will find what interests them (in a classroom setting) and molding content learning around those interests. A perfect example of this marriage of motivations is the concept of Genius Hour. The idea that students use 20% of their class time to design their own projects based on what they are interested in. These projects are published, shared, and collaborated on showing the power of intrinsic motivation in the classroom. If you want to see some excellent examples of genius hour see Jillian Hoge’s Genius Hour blog post and what her students were able to create in just eight short classroom sessions. Another example is Gamification in which video game aspects such as progress tracking and reward systems help motivate students to dive deeper into content. As we move deeper into the digitally driven 21st century let us remember the power of BOTH intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. True educators know that no student learns in only one way. It is our job as educators to find what interests our students and use that information to create the connections between those ideas and the ideas we want them to master. Through the marriage of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation this is truly possible.
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With the start of every new school year their is always the overwhelming feeling of optimism and hope for the new class and new group of young minds. For teachers, shortly after that first class period that feeling is often replaced with the smothering dread and anxiety about the AMOUNT of content that needs to be covered, that MUST be covered. As a history teacher I feel this more than most because parents, students, teachers, and even my boss has hard proof of how much content I was able to cover and missed by simply pointing to the last year or decade and covered and ask, “what about the rest?” I problem that other subjects can sometimes get around. This fear of content failure is a constant source of anxiety for teachers especially as we approach the end of the year and still have not covered X, Y, and Z. This fear is partly why many teachers plow headlong into their content on day one of classes. I used to start this way, hoping my proactive approach would lead to increased productivity (it did not) and decreased anxiety (it did not). So I switched to a new system and now I spend my first three days without even touching the textbook or the content inside...that is right, THREE WHOLE DAYS! The school I work at, St. John Vianney High School, has a two semester college prepatory schedule. This means that I see my students everyday for 90 minutes and at the end of the semester the students take their final exam. At the start of the new semester everyone has new classes and I have dozens of new students to start over with. In this system I have twice the opportunity to FREAK OUT about content, the schedule, and how I plan to cover 700 years of history in 81 days. I started my mindshift after reading the book “Teach Like a Pirate” by Dave Burgess. This book, written by a history teacher, explores a different way to teach. This new system asks teachers to engage their students through play, interactions, and fun. I HIGHLY recommend the book to all teachers as he explores how every subject can become more engaging to students. In the book he speaks about the power of the first 3 days of the new year and what could be done with those valuable hours. You could jump right into content, dragging your students with you hoping that they are ready to learn about weeks of break OR you could engage them as people. Dave Burgess suggested that you should get to know your students and allow them to get to know you. Then let them know your expectations and what they can expect out of the class. I took this to heart and transformed my class based on his model. Here is what I came up with: Day 1: Introductions and Expectations (remember 90 minute classes!)
Day 2: Desert Island Survival Day!
Day 3: “Sector 6” Introduction and Sigil Design
Over the course of these three days I have the opportunity to speak A LOT with each of my new students and they get to know me on a personal level. When we do start content on day four (content day one) we have a rapport to build off, a set of expectations, and a common goal in mind. This is now the third semester I have conducted this system and I can say that the relationships I have built over these days pay dividends when we get deep into the heart of the content. So, consider this for your future...would you rather spend a little bit of your time building a relationship with your students that you can expand upon for the whole class OR shove a few more days of raw content at them?
For me those relationships are crucial even if I miss a few decades of history later in the course! |
Brandon LewisMy name is Brandon Lewis and I am a high school history teacher in St. Louis Missouri. I practice the art of teaching at St. John Vianney High School. Archives
March 2016
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