Motivating Students

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Motivating Students

• How can I best motivate my students to learn?
• Research Design by Kristen Gray
• TE 891
• Summer 2005
• Professor Conley

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Research Purpose

• Quite simply, my job is to teach children.
  Whether its in a third grade self-contained
  classroom, or an eighth grade math class, I am
  expected to teach children. However, it is
  impossible to force someone to learn.
• Ive been told by many wise people, you can
  lead a horse to water, but you cant make him
  drink. This is true for students as well. My
  goal is to find ways to motivate children so that
  they WILL drink and ask for a refill.
• Theres ample research available on whats
  worked for others. My goal is to find what works
  for me and my students.

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Research Question

• My main question is How can I best motivate my
  students to learn?
• The key words in the above question are
  underlined. I have already found ways others
  motivate their students. That was the first sub
  question I needed to answer

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Sub Questions

• How have others motivated their students to
  learn?
• My research review outlines my findings on this
  question
• What causes students to lose motivation?
• What can I do to reinstate the lost motivation?
• What can I do to instill motivation with children
  who have none yet?

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Data Collection Regarding Sub Questions

• I will continue my research on the internet, in
  professional libraries, and with colleagues to
  collect further data on what has worked or been
  noted by others.
• I will interview my own students and their
  parents to find out what has happened, whats
  been tried, and hopefully, find an alternate
  solution to the problem (assuming they all
  realize they have a problem).

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Data Collection

• Methods Ill use to collect specific data on my
  target students include
• Teacher journal of anecdotal records
• What DOES the student seem to like?
• Who does the student best relate to?
• What are the students strengths and weaknesses
  (how can I use them to their advantage?)
• What strategy am I using? How is it working???
• Official student records
• Is there a history of low achievement?
• Has the child been tested for anything?
• Is there anything in the childs academic past
  that may be a red flag for whats causing the
  trouble?
• Conferencing with student
• Generalized methods dont always work with
  individual students. We need to truly know the
  student in order to find out how to motivate
  him/her.
• Parental contact and interviews
• is parents behavior enabling the childs?
• has something happened in the home environment

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The Big Picture
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Data Analysis

• I will review my anecdotal records each week
• to determine which strategy is the best one to
  use with this child (like a doctor reviewing
  symptoms before starting a medication)
• to determine if the current strategy is working
  or if changes need to be made (once the strategy
  is chosen).
• I will keep the parents involved in what Im
  trying at school so they can continue it at home.
• I will try a strategy for a period of at least 6
  weeks before trying something new.

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Points to Consider

• What is the students locus of control?
• Are the physiological needs being met?
• What is the probability of success for this task?
• Is the student unmotivated to learn everything or
  just certain topics?
• What needs that I can control are NOT being met?
  (environmental, teaching style)
• Where is the student in reference to the levels
  of reinforcement? Does the child respond to
  edible rewards? Although the idea is to aim for
  the highest level, children with poor self-esteem
  may need to start a little lower on the continuum.

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My Research Review the somewhat abridged
editionslide 1

• In Herbert Kohls, I Wont Learn From You
  (1994), he talks about a first-grader he taught
  while in his second year of first grade. This
  child had refused to learn to read. He had
  CHOSEN to not-read. He never got close enough to
  a book to try. Mr. Kohl had the sense to see
  through this and eventually was able to figure
  out what motivated this child to learn to read.
  The previous teacher only saw the temper tantrums
  and the apparent cognitive deficiency. In fact,
  I was able to reach him by acknowledging his
  choice to not-learn and by tricking him out of
  it. However, if he had refused assent, there is
  no way I could have forced him to learn to read.
  It helped me learn the essential role that will
  and free choice play in learning, and it taught
  me the importance of considering peoples stance
  toward learning in the larger context of the
  choices they make as they create lives and
  identities of their own (p.10). This brings
  about another important point to consider when
  seeking to motivate students the teacher will
  need to take a chance on what will or wont work.
  I feel its better to try and fail than to never
  try at all. Plus, we need to try to look at
  behaviors from the childs perspective. What we
  perceive as a meaningless tantrum may be
  attention seeking (trying to fulfill that
  specific need). In this particular instance, Mr.
  Kohl was able to identify this and redirect the
  child to a more appropriate way to meet his
  needs.

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My Research Review the somewhat abridged
editionslide 2

• In Tom Savages book, Teaching Self-Control
  Through Management and Discipline ( 1999) he
  devotes an entire chapter to motivation and
  discipline. This has so much useful information
  packed into it its difficult to summarize in the
  context of this review. A big idea worth mention
  is Three factors of motivation can be helpful
  as a teacher seeks to apply motivation theory in
  the classroom the needs and interests of the
  individual, the perception of the difficulty of
  the task, and the probability of success (p.58).
  Although these are all centered on the students
  needs, they are controllable to a certain extent
  by the teacher. An effective teacher will have
  strategies to understand the needs as well as
  meet them.
• Several strategies are laid out in a document I
  found at http//honolulu.hawaii.edu/intranet/commi
  ttees/FacDEvCom/guidebk/teachtip/motivation
  (thanks to Google). Incentives (external and
  internal, with more emphasis on internal) are
  listed, as well as environmental factors
  (interesting visual aids capture attention),
  checking that the children are ready to learn
  (meeting basic physiological needs like clothing,
  food, warmth), and organization on the part of
  the teacher (smooth flowing lessons, apparent
  mastery of content). All students need
  individual attainable goals. This is another job
  for the teacher know your students enough to
  assess what they can do and what they cant do.

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My Research Review the somewhat abridged
editionslide 3

• Linda Lumsden made an interesting point in her
  article, Student Motivation to Learn (1994)
  that children are born propelled by their
  curiosity, driven by an intense need to explore,
  interact with, and make sense of their
  environment. What causes children to lose this
  drive? At what point does learning become
  associated with drudgery and anxiety? What can
  teachers do to change this pivotal point in their
  development? According to Jere Brophy (1986),
  motivation to learn is a competence acquired
  through general experience but stimulated most
  directly through modeling, communication of
  expectations, and direct instruction or
  socialization by significant others, especially
  parents and teachers. If parents dont value
  education, teachers must not give up. These
  children still spend a majority of the day with
  us, so we do have the potential to make a
  difference. As Deborah Stipek (1998) notes, To
  a very large degree, students expect to learn if
  their teachers expect them to learn.

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My Research Review the somewhat abridged
editionslide 4

• Noted in several different sources was the idea
  that the locus of control for students can be
  either external or internal. If a child has an
  external locus of control, then he/she believes
  that any success is pure luck. This child
  doesnt connect success to effort. This creates
  a problem for the teacher in that he/she needs to
  prove to this child that he/she can succeed
  regardless of chance. Its their own efforts
  that result in success.
• I attempted to tap into my colleagues
  knowledge regarding motivation. Unfortunately,
  only one person responded, my dear friend who is
  also going through the MAED Program. Her input
  was I guess that you need to make it seem like
  this child is not learning but is doing
  something of interest to themWe just had a case
  study about a girl whose mom owned a restaurant
  and the girl worked at it. She loved doing this,
  but hated school. Some of the suggestions that
  we came up with were to make the learning
  work-related, such as math aimed at keeping the
  books and making recipes. You should find ways
  to make your unmotivated students work relevant
  to his/her life. This is completely inline with
  what Ive read in other sources. Keeping their
  interests in mind and finding some way to
  incorporate it into the cut and dry curriculums
  we are mandated to teach.

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My Research Review the somewhat abridged
editionslide 5

• In Living the Questions A Guide for
  Teacher-Researchers (1999), one of the authors
  discusses her own experience with motivation
  problems in regards to reading. As a child and
  into her adult years she simply had no desire to
  read. She knew how to read, she just chose not
  to as a spare time activity (Im thinking of
  sustained silent reading that many schools push
  onto students with similar attitudes). On page
  174 shes reflecting on when she turned 39 and a
  close friend gave her carefully selected books.
  She says, I learned that it makes a difference
  when you get to read things that accurately
  represent your realities-there are people who
  write, who know what you know, who maybe saw
  things that you saw, felt what you felt. With
  this kind of personal and pleasing
  reintroduction, reading soon grew to be a
  passion, a want-to, a have-to experience If we
  want to encourage efferent reading (thus
  increasing fluency) we need to give students
  something they WANT to read.

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My Research Review The final slide and the WHY
of this research project

• All of this talk about motivation is important
  for two big reasons. First of all, we want
  children to grow up with a desire to continue
  learning. Life is all about continued education,
  not necessarily formally, but why become
  stagnant? Secondly, when students are motivated
  to learn, they are actively involved in
  appropriate behavior (most of the time) and thus,
  misbehavior is diminished. Doesnt that paint
  such an eloquent picture? A classroom where
  students WANT to learn and get along

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Resources

• Brophy, J. (2004). Motivating Students to
  Learn. Second Edition. Mahwah, NJ Lawrence
  Erlbaum.
• Brophy, J. (1986). On Motivating Students.
  Occasional Paper No. 101. East Lansing,
  Michigan Institute for Research on Teaching,
  Michigan State University.
• Doyle, J. Email communication, June 25, 2005
• General Principles of Motivation. Retrieved June
  26, 2005, from http//wwhonolulu.hawaii.edu/in
  tranet/committees/FacDevCom/guidebk/teachtip.motiv
  ation
• Hubbard, R. Power, B. (1999). Living the
  Questions A Guide for Teacher-Researchers.
  Maine Stenhouse Publishers.
• Hubbard, R. Power, B. (2003). The Art of
  Classroom Inquiry A Handbook for
  Teacher-Researchers. New Hampshire Heinemann.
• Hunter, Max. Levels of Reinforcement. Retrieved
  July 3, 2005 from http//maxweber.hunter.cuny.edu/
  pub/eres/EDSPC715_MCINTYRE/Reinforcement.htm

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Resources (continued)

• Kohl, H. (1994). I Wont Learn From You. New
  York New Press.
• Larrivee, B. (2005). Authentic Classroom
  Management, Creating a Learning Community and
  Building Reflective Practice. Boston Pearson.
• Lumsden, L. (1994). Student Motivation to
  Learn. Oregon Clearinghouse on Educational
  Policy and Management. (ERIC Document
  Reproduction Service No. 92). Retrieved July 1,
  2005, from http//eric.uoregon.edu/publications/d
  igests/digest092.html
• Raffini, J. (1993) Winners Without Losers
  Structures and Strategies for Increasing Student
  Motivation to Learn. Boston Allyn and Bacon
• Savage, T. (1999). Teaching Self-Control
  Through Management and Discipline. Boston
  Allyn and Bacon.
• Stipek, D. (1988) Motivation to Learn From
  Theory To Practice. Englewood Cliffs, New
  Jersey Prentice Hall.