Motivating Student Learning

Grouping
Autonomy
Goal: Recognize and reward
effort and progress.
GOAL: Give students opportunities to take responsibility for their
own learning.
Goal: Make learning tasks meaningful, interesting, and challenging but doable.
Ideas for Motivating Student Learning
An elaboration on the TARGETT Model
Task
Align objectives, assessments, learning experiences
Be clear about expectations
Ensure sufficient prior knowledge
Offer strategies (for study, preparation, etc.)
Connect content to students' interest
Make tasks authentic and relevant
Be explicit about value of the content/skills
Vary the nature of learning tasks
Focus on engagement versus compliance
Recognition
Evaluation
Create opportunities for choice (e.g., topics, rolling deadlines, partners, media, etc.)
Allow students to help set pace
GOAL: Design group tasks such that there is a group goal but individual accountability.
Create cooperative groups (group goal; individual accountability) for high stakes projects
Make individual roles explicit
Make groups heterogeneous
Mix up groupings (individuals, pairs, triads, etc.)
Establish 'communities of learners'
Use impromptu groups, such as Think-Pair-Share approach, to help break up lecture.
Attribute success to effort.
Give credit for progress toward goals.
Consider giving grades for improvement.
Create opportunities for success.
Avoid public comparisons.
GOAL: Create an environment where assessment focuses on improvement and evaluation reflects mastery.
Allow revisions, within reason.
Reward progress and improvement.
Create opportunities for success.
Use 'exam wrappers.'
Provide frequent feedback. (e.g., CATs)
Help students see that mistakes can lead to learning.
Time
GOAL: Pace your instruction and the work expectations.
Pace instruction appropriately.
Vary instructional approaches.
Allow more time when students struggle. (Don't assume that, because you uttered it, they learned it!)
Be sensitive to students' time constraints outside of class. (Don't lower expectations, but consider negotiating time tables.)
Teacher
expectations
GOAL: Set high, positive, and appropriate expectations.
Align learning objectives, learning activities, and assessments.
Make expectations clear and explicit.
Communicate that you expect growth...
and that you will be supportive.
Credit for the original model goes to Epstein (1989) and for later modifications to Ames (1992) and Maehr & Midgley (1996).
References:
Ambrose et al. (2010). How learning works: 7 research-based principles for smart teaching. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Ames, C. (1992). Classrooms: Goals, structures, and student motivation. Journal of Educational Psychology, 84, 261-271.
Epstein, J. (1989). Family structures and student motivation: A developmental perspective. In C. Ames & R Ames (Eds.), Research on Motivation in Education (Vol. 3, pp. 119-161). New York: McMillan.
Maehr, M. L., & Midgley, C. (1996). Transforming school cultures, Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Pintrich, P. R., & Schunk, D. H. (2002). Motivation in education: Theory, research, and applications (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill Prentice Hall.


All photos are taken from Penn State websites.
Carol Dweck's
Mindsets
Fixed
Growth
Challenges
Obstacles
Effort
Criticism
Others' success
Housekeeping:
All locations present?
Please make sure Deidre (day12) gets attendance. Thanks!
Handout, everyone?
What does motivation look like?