In this book I discovered that intrinsic motivators, which I briefly learned about in a course titled psychology of education, were only discovered by scientists in 1949. We can credit Harry F. Harlow and his rhesus monkeys for starting psychologists down the path of motivation 3.0.
Humans have an inherent tendency to seek out challenges and exploration to interest their minds. We can expect the same from our students.
My former, Professor Dr. Jessica Schocker, taught me that children are born and enter kindergarten with a natural will to learn. Daniel Pink's book certainly solidifies this. Dr. Schocker continues, that somewhere between kindergarten and middle school, most students lose their inherent will to learn.
In part 1, I learned that once an extrinsic motivator (motivation 2.0) is added, the fragile intrinsic motivators (motivation 3.0) are damaged. Further more, the removal of extrinsic motivators does NOT restore intrinsic motivation, in fact it usually damages it more!
Intrinsic motivation is displayed in multiple ways. One example are companies harnessing the power of "open-sourcing" utilize the labor of volunteers. Wikipedia, powered by millions of volunteer hours around the globe, pushed out Microsoft's encyclopedia. Other open-sourced examples include, firefox, lynix, apache, credit unions, legal briefings, cookbooks, and more!
While extrinsic motivators have their place, we must be aware of the 7 deadly flaws of extrinsic motivation.
As teachers we must ask what methods should we use to motivate our students. When debating using extrinsic motivators as yourself, "Is The Task Routine?" if yes, extrinsic motivators may be be used, if no, they will cause more damaged than good. Carrots and Sticks do not foster creativity and exploration, but they do increase performance for straight-forward thinking tasks.
Extrinsic Rewards are not always forbidden in right brained activities either, they can be used sparingly in "now that" rewards, rather than "if, then." For example, sparingly I could say, now that the the unit projects were meaningful and creative, we will spend 15 extra minutes in the greenhouse. This caters to intrinsic motivators more than saying, If you do well on your projects, then we will spend an extra 15 minutes in the greenhouse.
I look forward to using this information in my classroom. I plan to remember that if the reward is the TASK itself, than there is no short cuts or low-roads to obtain the reward for completion.
Pink continues to discussion the involvement of The Self Determination Theory and it's role in intrinsic motivation. Type i managers and teachers leverage autonomy, mastery/competence, and purpose/relativeness to motivate students and employees intrinsically. Meanwhile, Type X people use extrinsic reward to motivate their employees.
Stay tuned for part 2!
Hi Lisa - your first blog provides an overview of the book's root premise and you address the main points pretty well! I am interested to hear about your plans to implement the principals and grow your skill set to incorporate this important information. Awareness is step one and there is power and potential in the concepts! Looking forward to your continued growth through your journey over the next 12 months!
ReplyDeleteHello Mr. Keith! I'll admit the book is challenging to wrap my head around and translate these work-related analogies into classroom scenarios, but I LOVE it!
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ReplyDeleteLisa, great job with capturing a snapshot of the books main points and big takeaways. The graphics you include are very supportive of what you are saying and is something that is also helpful to include in a classroom when giving direct instruction. I would encourage you to think all 3 circles of the 3 circle model when reading and as you go through this fall semester. Where you can you apply what you learn and read to all FFA and SAE as well as the classroom/lab? Keep up the great work!
Surprisingly I feel SAE and FFA would be easier to infuse autonomy and intrinsic motivations into. The student drives both circles, although we can encourage or require various things, the projects are very student specific.
DeleteFor instance, the student knows their resources and interests to know what they are capable of for their SAE project. As teachers we can encourage their growth intrinsically by asking questions that would spark their curiosity in the project. We can also offer support with our knowledge and resources to fill the gap of their Zone of Proximal Development with scaffolding we provide.
Thanks Lisa.
ReplyDeletePlease work to make explicit the following in future posts:
1) How this will impact your Fall (Short, succinct)
2) How this will impact your Spring
3) How you solicited feedback/input from your Mentor Team
Lisa, cool concepts, right? I've always found student motivation to be a unique challenge to study and improve on. I thought the point about children losing their will to learn was interesting but definitely something we can observe in the classroom. I'm excited to hear more about what you learn through this book.
ReplyDeleteLisa,
ReplyDeleteYou're picking up on some of the same take aways that I am from the book as I read. Many of the school systems right now are based around compliance (carrots and sticks) and it can be exhausting to work within and very hard to undo that mindset. I have two things for you to consider right now as these are the same two things I am going to consider for myself and would love to collaborate with you on the implementation as we plan for next year.
1. How can we "undo" the impact of extrinsic motivators on a school level in our classroom environment without undermining school authority figures in front of our students?
2. In what ways does my/your grading system (you'll want to think through that as you plan during the fall) support and conflict with what we learn about motivation? How can the grading expectations and rubrics be shifted to better accomplish the overall learning goals while tapping into a student's intrinsic motivators to keep critical thinking and creativity going strong?
1. I would approach this topic by making it clear, we expect the same amount of effort and grading will still be consistent with the school wide policy, although we focus on growth and your motivation to learn as much as we do the product our students are able to create.
Delete2. I'm glad we discussed this over my last visit. By not grading every assignment or task the student is asked we are allowing them to decide their investment. "I'm not grading this assignment, but it will help you learn for the test/assignment/project which is graded" is still an extrinsic motivator down the line, but the students can make an antonymous decision to work on the task at hand in their own way.
Lisa,
ReplyDeleteI know I am not the first to say this but, you are capturing great take aways from the first part of this book. This first part made me reflect on my own classroom and even parenting practices.
I believe that there are so many ways that FFA members use intrinsic motivation throughout the year, i.e. community service, banquet planning, etc. As an agriculture teacher we know that motivation exists in our students but it is much harder to apply to the plant science project. So this brings up the same point as Alex, what ways does our grading system and rubrics support or conflict with what we learned about motivation? I think this is a great point to start because we know that we are not able to shift a mindset over night. Great job and I am looking forward to the next reflection.
Hello Mrs. Cambruzzi! Mrs. Barzydlo and I discussed this at our August meeting. She posed me with this dialog
DeleteStudent "is this Graded"
Teacher "No its not"
Student "Then why am I doing it?"
Teacher "Because it will help you on the test/project/assignment which is graded"
Student - thinks a second, "oh ok"
After this interaction, the student is free to use th worksheet/practice test or other activities for their own use to work toward the larger goal of doing well on the summative assignment. This is a smaller bite-sized intrinsic motivator to begin infusing DRiVE into my class. Yes the grade on the summative assignment is still extrinsic, but we are not able to let the student learn in their own way to achieve a milestone.
Lisa, I really like how you relate what you are reading in the book to what you have learned already in your coursework at PSU. Making connections to how the messages presented in the book will relate to your journey as an agricultural educator are key. Utilizing and incorporating feedback from your mentoring team team book discussions into your blog posts will help with this process!
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