How do I motivate my employees to do their jobs? How do I motivate myself to do my dishes? How do I motivate my students to want to learn? Motivation is something that impacts the lives of everyone, but what is it and how do I learn to use it? Daniel Pink’s Drive focuses on just that, and more specifically, the powers of intrinsic motivation.
Intrinsic motivation is when you do something because you want to. It is related to enjoyment and fulfillment. Increasing intrinsic motivation can have powerful effects in business, personal lives, and classrooms. Some of the most well known and well used inventions and software were created just because someone(s) wanted to, such as post-its and Wikipedia. But how do we foster a sense of intrinsic motivation in students? Pink brings up many important aspects of intrinsic motivation in his book, many of which can be applied to the classroom.
Rewards
Rewards are connected to the opposite of intrinsic motivation: extrinsic motivation. When if-then rewards are used (such as “If you study hard for your exam, then you will earn a pizza party”) they may increase motivation in the short term, but kill motivation in the long term. If a pizza party is offered for one exam, it will be expected for every exam. Sometimes, using rewards can actually lower performance on tasks. There are two instances where rewards should be used in a classroom. The first is as a surprise after a task has been completed. For example: if a student goes above and beyond for a project, extra credit may be given after the projects completion.
The other instance where rewards should be used is when the tasks are routine or boring. First, it should be acknowledged that the task is boring, then the purpose for the task explained. For example, if students need to memorize anything, such as scientist names or phylogenetic categories, rewards could be used for memorizing them. Another route would be to make the task more engaging or fun to turn the task from a routine one to an exciting one.
One of my favorite ways to make routine tasks more fun is gamification. Several gamification platforms, such as Kahoot, Gimkit, and Blooket, are available online where games can be created with custom questions. Gimkit and Blooket involve a variety of games resembling other videogames and are popular with students. Gamification is not only a great way to motivate students to memorize facts, but it is also a good for encouraging students to complete practice problems.
Autonomy
Autonomy involves making decisions about your work. It requires a sense of choice and the ability to work on your own terms. Encouraging autonomy in a classroom begins with creating an environment where students can take charge of their own learning. Inquiry-based activities, where students are able to make decisions about how they complete a project and what conclusions they make, are a great way to foster autonomy in the classroom.
One example of an activity that would encourage autonomy is an experiment where the only things students are given is access to materials and a general question to answer. This pulls from the concept of a “ROWE”, or Results Only Work Environment, which doesn’t dictate how employees spend their time or complete their work as long as they get results. Students would be expected to come up with an experiment to test the question and present their results in some way. They would have freedom to design the experiment from scratch and present the materials in whatever way they deem fitting. Students could even come up with their own research questions around a specific topic.
For example, in a unit about water quality, students could come up with their own research questions about water quality. Research questions could focus on the quality of water from different sources, ways to filter water, where local drinking water comes from, and more. Students would be given feedback and help obtaining materials or resources from the teacher, then they would complete their experiments or projects over the course of several days or weeks. Their research could then be presented in the form of a paper, poster, video, presentation, or another method. In this example, autonomy is present in every part of the project from the determination of a research question to the presentation of data.
Purpose
Intrinsic motivation is about doing things because you want to, but usually there is some other purpose connected to a task that helps bring a sense of fulfillment. For example, I could be intrinsically motivated to donate blood because I value service to my community. Purpose can be individual, in the case of personal growth goals, or something greater, such as connection to the community or a cause. Personal purpose can be fostered in a classroom through encouraging the creation of personal growth goals by the student. Studies show that having personal growth goals lead to more happiness in life, and getting students to practice a growth mindset by setting their own personal learning goals can help them learn how to use a growth mindset in their everyday lives. These goals could be made at the start of the year or unit and progress can be checked throughout the year through student-teacher conferences.
Another way to imbue a sense of purpose into your classroom is to connect the content to a greater purpose. In science this may look like connecting content to culture or to everyday life or objects, or it may look like taking your students out into the field to complete real research. This real research can be something decided on by students, but there are also opportunities to connect to greater causes. For example, students can monitor the health of a watershed by counting macroinvertebrates, water flow rate, and turbidity and send their data to a watershed monitoring station. This data would then be used to help monitor the health of that watershed and track changes over time.
There is no lack of ways to get students involved in science that fosters intrinsic motivation. Fortunately, many of these things work very well together. A project where students have autonomy to make decisions about their work could very well be tied to a larger purpose, or a purpose determined by the students to be important. These kinds of tasks would not need a reward, because they are their own reward. A classroom guided by intrinsic motivation is one where students are empowered to learn about the world around them not because they have to, but because they want to.
I love the games that you included. One of my favorite assignments in middle school was creating a board game on a subject. Would you incorporate an assignment like that into your class?
I really connect with your methods to gamify the classroom. Ideally students enjoy school because they find the content itself fun, but connecting the content to an activity they already find fun is a good way to bring back students that have been disconnected from the content.
Thanks Ryan! I agree, gamification or fun activities is a great way to get students interested, even if it isn’t initially about the content. I think it is an especially great way to engage students in tasks that would otherwise be boring, like memorization, or in tasks that support content that has already been taught, such as a review game or activity.
I love this Post! as it is late November, how would you try and implement something mid-school year? Do you think I can instill purpose and autonomy so late?
Purpose and autonomy can be worked in to individual assignments and activities, even without the support for it through the whole year. Individual activities, concepts, and projects that relate to the larger world can be brought in at any point in the year. If your students aren’t receptive to it, then you can try something a bit smaller scale, such as allowing them to chose the representational mode for a project or otherwise existing assignment. Allowing students to chose how they complete an assignment, even if you give them the option of completing it the way you originally intended, is a great way to allow for student autonomy at any point in the school year. It’s better late than never!