Motivating Our Students

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Motivating Our Students

• Wei-Chien Lee, Ph.D.
• Counseling Services
• 924-5910 Wei-Chien.Lee_at_sjsu.edu

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Objectives

• Mutual learning Best practices in motivating
  students.
• Gain knowledge and skills you can adopt for
• Motivating our students and ourselves.
• Promoting the well-being and self-efficacy of our
  students, family, children, etc.

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Outline

• Warm-up discussion.
• Introduction Why Motivating?
• Recent research findings and skills
• Increasing self-efficacy.
• Discussion and mutual learning.
• Fostering the mastery mind set and efforts.
• Discussion and mutual learning.
• Conclusion and Additional Tools.
• Contextualizing.
• Developing Strengths.

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Informed Consent

• We will focus on harvesting the pearls of wisdom
  from each other
• Take off our editor, reviewer, and/or
  teacher hat (just for an hour).
• The effectiveness of any intervention is
  context-dependent.
• Questions, contribution, sharing, and comments
  help us learn in different ways at different
  levels. No question or comment is stupid.
• We will be curious, support each other, and have
  some fun, because teaching is

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Warm-up Question
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1. Think about a Highly Motivated Student

• What are some signs of a motivated student?
• Now, how these signs would change if this student
  is
• First generation college student?
• Latina/o, Black, Asian, or Native American?
• Trying to support the family financially and
  emotionally?
• Coping with a mental disorder?
• Side note Being motivated differ from
  engaging?

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Choose Motivation
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Why Choose Motivating?

• Correlates of academic achievement
• SES of parents.
• Students and parental IQ.
• Parental and peer influences.
• Motivational factors.
• We can do something about it, for promoting
• Learning.
• Social Justice and equal educational outcomes.
• Performance.

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Motivational Factors

• Self-Efficacy
• Attribution theory
• Success comes from ability or effort?
• Ability is fixed or learned?
• Achievement Goal orientation.
• Learning goals vs. performance goals?
• Interest theories.
• Feelings of connectedness to classmates and
  teachers.
• Have your cake and eat it Take a break by
  asking a counselor to come to your class and
  conduct activities to foster mutual respect,
  connectedness, and teamwork.
• Perceptions of competence, autonomy, and
  relatedness.
• Feeling of helplessness associated with learning.
  
• Hit two birds with one stone Show students you
  care by actively referring them to campus
  resources (see the SJSU Student Success
  Resources and Spartan Success Workshop.).

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1. Enhancing Self-Efficacy

• Self-efficacy
• Ones belief in ones capability to get things
  done successfully.

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Jackson (2002)

• Research Question Can one e-mail enhance
  students self-efficacy?
• N 132 1st year college students from
  introductory psychology course.
• Get extra credits by sending an e-mail to the
  professor.
• 76 sent e-mail, and they were randomly assigned
  to (1) control group and (2) self-efficacy
  enhancing group.

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• Control Group
• Thank you for your e-mail. You have been awarded
  the bonus point.
• Self-Efficacy Group
• Dear _____, I received your e-mail message and
  have awarded you the extra-credit point. Also let
  me take a moment and say thanks for doing such a
  great job on critical thinking assignment and for
  your thoughtful participation in class! You have
  exhibited good analytic skills, and you have
  shown that you understand and can apply the
  material. Again, I would like to encourage you
  to study hard and work to improve your test
  score. I am sure you can do it! Good luck.
  Remember, dont hesitate to contact me if you
  have any questions

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Results

• The e-mail improved the Self-Efficacy groups
  self-efficacy and grade.

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Strong Empirical Support

• Robbins et al. (2004).
• Meta-Analysis.
• Best predictors for GPA Academic Self-efficacy
  X Achievement motivation.
• (Study skills contribute to college outcome more
  than SES, high school GPA).
• Brown et al. (2008).
• Meta-Analysis.
• f (Self-efficacy) Academic performance and
  persistence.

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Pause, Breathe, Reflect, and Mutual Learning
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2. Focusing on Effort

• The Mastery-oriented mindset.

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To What Extent Do You Agree

• Intelligence is something you cant really
  change.
• Strongly Disagree
• Disagree
• Neutral
• Agree
• Strongly Agree

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Cultural Influences

• Smart ?
• Movie Good Will Hunting A Beautiful Mind.
• Fairy tales and stories
• Smart fast, handsome, little efforts
• Most tests are performance based, with a time
  limit.
• Limited outlets and appreciations to different
  talents and abilities.
• The symptoms of our students are the symptoms of
  our culture.

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Performance Focused/Fixed Mind-Set

• Fixed mind-set
• Intelligence Fixed trait.
• Performance Goals
• Outcome f (Ability).
• Convey/Transmit through
• Culture stories, sayings, media, role models..
• Praise for intelligence You must be very
  smart.
• Heighten social comparison. Normal reference,
  valuing achievement
• Establish competitive academic standards.
• Focus on performance instead of mastery.

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Performance Focused/Fixed Mind-Set

• Consequences
• Instill beliefs such as
• Work hard Dumb.
• Mistake/Error Lack of ability/Dumb.
• Smart Success.
• Avoid or refuse to take on new challenges.
• Setbacks or negative feedbacks
• Decrease in self-efficacy, aspiration,
  self-evaluation, and/or future performance.
• Evidence of lack of ability ? Not going to
  success.
• Relationship, leadership, and communication
  problems.

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Learning Goals/Mastery Mind-Set

• Emphasis on understanding and growth.
• Intelligence is malleable and can be developed
  through education and hard work.
• Transmit/Convey through
• Stories about effort and struggles.
• Praise and acknowledge efforts. You have worked
  hard on it! You must have put in a lot of
  efforts.
• Encouragement (not empty cheering). It takes
  practices/several trials to.

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Learning Goals/Mastery Mind-Set

• Consequences
• Instill beliefs
• Error Need more effort.
• Challenge Opportunity to grow and learn.
• Increase in performance, self-efficacy,
  self-esteem, and persistence.
• Enjoy school work more and value school work
  more.

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Pause, Process, Share, Experiment, and Inquire.
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Additional Tool 1. Contextualizing

• Instruction (Instead of this ? Say this)
• Keys
• Focus on the correct subject Not the student,
  but the behaviors.
• Take the U (you) out and put the BS (Behavior
  and Skills) in.
• Focus on helping students to achieve their goals.
  
• Teach students what we all know really well
  read the context.
• Example
• You are irresponsive! ? This behavior was not
  effective in helping you achieve your goal of
  getting the grade you want in this class.

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Additional Tool 1. Contextualizing

• More Examples Instead of this ? Say this
• Bad writing. ? This writing style is different
  from the writing style required for this
  assignment. Here are the differences
• Practice
• You need to be less shy!
• ? Speaking up in this class shows your interests
  and understanding in the subjects.
• Why dont you talk more in my class?
• ? It takes courage to talk in a class, and I
  would encourage you to try once.

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Additional Tools 2 Strengths

• How many different strengths in students can you
  appreciate?
• Based on positive psychology.
• Help students to develop, appreciate, understand,
  and use their strengths.
• See the Strength Quest handout.

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Thank You for your patience, participation, and
motivation.