MOTIVATIONNCS 2 - Introduction to Motivation

Motivitional Speaker

Van? Seriously? Yes, he can motivate you

• How do you define motivation?

• How do you decide whether a student is motivated or not motivated?

• How can a teacher influence a student’s motivation?

Motivation: Theories, Variables, and Psychological Elements

Attribution Theory, Self-Drive Theory , Self-Worth Theory

Multiple theories explain how motivation develops and evolves over time.

SKFLIR

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nowledge of Results

eeling Tone

evel of Concern

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Multiple variables can be manipulated to increase or decrease student motivation.Multiple psychological elements build intrinsic motivation and impact the quality, amount, and type of work we do.

Variables of Motivation

Psychological Elements

A

M

P

utonomy

astery

urpose

choice with accountability and interdependence

the desire to get better and better at something that matters

a cause larger than yourself

Attribution Theory

Attribution Theory by Saul McLeod published 2010 How do we attach meaning to other's behavior, or our own?  This is called attribution theory. For example, is someone angry because they are bad-tempered or because something bad happened? !- “Attribution theory deals with how the social perceiver uses information to arrive at causal explanations for events.  It examines what information is gathered and how it is combined to form a causal judgment.” (Fiske, & Taylor, 1991) - Attribution theory is concerned with how and why ordinary people explain events as they do. - Heider (1958) believed that people are naive psychologists trying to make sense of the social world.  People tend to see cause and effect relationships even where there is none! !Heider didn’t so much develop a theory himself as emphasize certain themes that others took up.  There were two main ideas that he put forward that became influential. ! - 1. When we explain the behavior of others we look for enduring internal attributions, such as

personality traits.  For example we attribute the behavior of a person to their naivety or reliability or jealousy. 2. When we try to explain our own behavior we tend to make external attributions, such as situational or environment.

!!http://www.simplypsychology.org/attribution-theory.html

Attribution Theory Generalizations The only way to know which attributes students use to explain their achievement or lack of it

is to ask them. The attributes a student uses to explain achievement or lack of it can be different for different

tasks. The more ingrained a student’s attributions are, the harder they are to change. It is best for students to have an internal locus of control--that is to believe that their own

ability and effort, rather than external factors like luck and task difficulty, lead to success or failure.ABOUT ABILITY

If we want students to persist at academic tasks, we should help them believe they are competent.

It is not beneficial for students to attribute their successes entirely to ability. If they think they already have all the ability they need, they may quit working and lose ground.ABOUT EFFORT

It is extremely damaging to student motivation for a student to fail repeatedly after making a serious effort at academic tasks.

It is important for students to define effort accurately. Effort means devoting effective academic learning time and action to the task. Teacher feedback can show students how to improve effort.

Students who believe they are “lazy” lose motivation.

Attribution TheoryHow students perceive the causes of their prior successes or failures determines whether or not they will attend to and persist in the academic tasks you assign.

ABILITY I’m good at. . .

I’m not good at. . .

EFFORT I worked hard at. . .

I didn’t work hard at. . .

LUCK I’m lucky. . .

I’m not lucky. . .

TASK DIFFICULTY This task was easy. . .

This task was hard. . .

SUCCESS OR FAILURESUCCESS OR FAILURE

SUCCESS OR FAILURE

INTERNAL EXTERNAL

Which of these four do students have control over?

Attribution TheoryGive two examples of how you use one or more of the four attributes--ability, effort, luck and task difficulty--to explain successes or failures in your own life. !EX: I’m not very good at technology even though I am working harder all the time to get better. When I master a technology skill, I either tell myself that I was really lucky to get it right or that the skill was really easy.

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1. !

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2.

Self-Drive Theory

INCREASING THEIR MOTIVATION

Using the Variable of Success

What is the definition of success?

How does frequent success or failure affect student learning?

What can teachers do to increase the likelihood of student success and therefore improve student

motivation?

Self-­‐Drive  Theory   says that three things motivate productivity in situations requiring creativity and problem solving. !Autonomy—the most important of three basic needs - • Autonomy is different from independence. It is not “rugged individualism.” It is “acting with choice.” !Mastery—a second important basic need.

• Mastery is the desire to get better and better at something that matters. !

Purpose provides a context for autonomy and mastery. The most deeply motivated people hitch their desires to a cause larger than themselves. !Daniel H. Pink - Drive - 2009 !!!!

Motivation is described in terms of two competing drives--the striving for success and the fear of failure.

!Over time, the frequency of successes and failures

impacts how students see themselves and their potential to succeed.

In 1993, motivation researcher M.V. Covington pointed out that school presents students with a special “ability game” that for some can be difficult to win. Over time frequent successes and failures cause them to develop one of three perspectives about the game of school.

! SUCCESS- FAILURE FAILURE ORIENTED AVOIDERS ACCEPTORS students see are uncertain see themselves themselves as about the as doomed academically probability from the competent. of success. Outset.

In 2001, researcher Rick Stiggins described the effects of repeated successes or failures on student efforts. Success-oriented students have had repeated successes in the classroom.

When they do fail, they know that the problem can be corrected if they work harder and smarter (increase their effort), so they do. Usually, harder, smarter work results in more success.

Failure avoiders have had repeated failures in the classroom. As a result they doubt their own abilities. Additional failures just reinforce their sense of inadequacy. When they do succeed, they fear they didn’t deserve the success or think that the success was an accident that can’t happen again.

Failure acceptors have experienced so much failure over time that they have given up on themselves and school. There is no desire to “try” left in them. They become mental dropouts or practice “learned helplessness.”

When it comes to learning and motivation, SUCCESS is an internal sense of achievement as perceived by the learner.

Thus, “success” is: contextual in nature.

different for different students.

Standards-based educators believe that:

ALL students can succeed.

Teachers control the conditions for success.

Success breeds success.

To feel success, students must: expend effort to accomplish a worthwhile (important) task.

Teacher diagnosis is critical. Can students who don’t know their

multiplication facts be successful on long-division problems?

Will students who already know how to write a bibliography feel successful after a lesson on how to write a bibliography?

Will students who use long division to solve real-life story problems feel more successful than do students who use long division to only solve a set of problems in a textbook?

To feel success, students must: face a moderate degree of difficulty.

To encourage success, teachers must: control the level of difficulty of the task for ALL students.

Teacher analysis and instructional ability are critical.

Assign the number of problems to complete on a timed test according to previous success.

Decide whether students will work alone, work with partners, or work as a large group.

Decide how to present information so that students with different learning styles can all learn it equally well.

To encourage success, teachers must: use teaching skills that make success for ALL students possible.

Success is not about giving students easy work. It is about providing them with rigor that is achievable.

Success

➡Scaffolding teaching content from easiest to hardest.

➡ Providing appropriate wait time that encourages all students to process a question.

➡Deliberately building small groups to include students with all ranges of ability.

➡ Finding multiple ways to have students actively participate in processing lesson information and practicing.

➡ Providing students with choices for process, product, and assessment.

➡ Using frequent formative assessments and tracking student gains over time to build perceptions of success?

➡ Providing “do-over” opportunities to improve the quality of work?

The following teaching strategies have the likelihood to improve success for individual students:

Time to Review1. What is the definition of success?

2. How does frequent success or failure affect student learning?

3. What can teachers do to increase the likelihood of student success and therefore improve student motivation?

Self-Worth Theory

SELF-WORTH THEORY (COVINGTON – 1976) !

The self-worth theory of achievement motivation (Covington & Beery, 1976; Covington, 1984) assumes that the highest human priority is the search for self-acceptance and that “one’s worth often comes to depend on the ability to achieve competitively” (Covington, 1998, p. 78): !-From Covington’s explanation of the interplay between human value and accomplishment we gain the perspective that two factors, achievement and ability, dominate as the ultimate value in the minds of many school children, and that this perspective likely carries into adulthood. !!

-The absence of behavior—docility, passivity, and listlessness—is surely just as motivated as is a lively abundance of behavior. According to the self-worth analysis, the reluctant learner who may refuse to study is already motivated, driven by circumstances to protect his or her self-esteem. (Covington, 1998, p. 16) !Weibell, C. J. (2011). Principles of learning: 7 principles to guide personalized, student-centered learning in the technology-enhanced, blended learning environment. Retrieved July 4, 2011 from [https://principlesoflearning.wordpress.com].

Martin Covington, Professor of Psychology at the University of California-Berkley, wrote Making the Grade: A Self-Worth Perspective on Motivation and School Reform, in 1992.

* He states that student motivation can best be understood in terms of each student’s attempts to maintain self-worth and that self-worth is a key factor in the development of independent learning skills.

* He defines self-worth as positive self image--”the need to protect our own general belief that we are good, capable individuals.”

* He says public school classrooms are battlegrounds where effort and ability vie for influence over a student’s achievements and therefore

over his or her self-worth. * He says students’ perceptions of self-worth change over time. They

initially believe effort has the most influence over achievement and therefore over self-worth; but by middle school they believe that ability is the only factor influencing achievement and therefore self-worth.

As a child gets older, social comparisons, competition, experiences with success and failure, and adult feedback about their performances tell them that ability is more valuable than effort.

!As a child gets older, protecting a sense of worth as defined by the ability to achieve competitively

becomes increasingly more important. !As a child gets older, (s)he struggles to preserve dignity and a sense of self-worth by adopting effort

“ruses” that both explain their failure and hide their ability. Such ruses include: -underachieving (refusing to work so there is no test of ability) -cheating (passing off other’s work as their own) -procrastination (starting so late that there is no way to succeed regardless of ability) -excessive busyness (being too busy at nonacademic tasks that academic tasks don’t get done) -perfectionism (spending so much time on one aspect of an academic task that the task itself can’t be

finished) -choosing or setting unattainable goals (choosing goals so hard no one could accomplish them) -collective failure (associating with friends who fail because if everyone fails, the problem is with the

task, not with individual ability) -adopting the “academic wooden leg” (using a minor personal weakness or handicap such as test

anxiety to cover up intellectual inadequacy) !Even when students believe they have convinced others that their poor performance was a result of

insufficient effort rather than ability, they describe themselves as “lazy” and “shiftless.” !Humans will stop at little--lying, cheating, even failure--to protect their self-worth.

Effects of Self-Worth Theory

- Regardless of their ability, students with high effort receive more positive feedback for success and less negative feedback for failure. (Weiner, 1992, 2001)

- Students with high ability, low effort, and failure received the most negative feedback.

- Students who did not try to evoke the most irritation from teachers, who in turn are likely to respond with punishment.

- American teachers tend to view students with low ability who try hard and succeed more favorable because our culture values those who overcome handicaps and succeed. In other cultures, teachers view students with high ability more favorably.

Knowledge of Results Critical Attributes

Knowledge of Results is:

the kind of feedback

the amount of feedback

the specificity of feedback

the immediacy of feedback

that students receive about their learning.

Each of these critical attributes exists on a continuum, and each of them affects a student’s desire to continue with the learning or the task.

Knowledge of Results is: the kind of feedback

KIND OF FEEDBACK

IMPACT OF FEEDBACK

NO FEEDBACK

PRAISE

MARKS/GRADES

SPECIFIC COMMENTS

“Just doing something again without knowing how well we did it is not very satisfying or stimulating.” Madeline Hunter Mastery Teaching 1982

“Praise leads kids to feel good about themselves but be unable to do anything. The goal of learning is for kids to be able to do the tasks related to learning goals.” Dylan Wiliam Using Assessment to Support Learning 2006

“Students need feedback and lots of it, but grades are not the best forms of feedback. Grades, by their very nature, are post-learning. If we want students to learn, we can’t spend a lot of time using grades as learning tools.” Rick Wormeli Fair Isn’t Always Equal 2006

“Researcher John Hattie. . .reported that providing students with specific information about their standing in terms of particular objectives increased their achievement by 37 percentile points! This finding led Hattie to remark, “The most powerful single innovation that enhances achievement is feedback.” Robert Marzano Instructional Strategies that Work to Improve Student Achievement 2001

How Can You Make Comments Specific?

Describe the student’s work. “Your topic sentence and concluding sentence are clear and they go well together.” !

Comment on the process the student used to do the work. “Can you rewrite that sentence so it goes better with the one before it?” !

Relate work back to the learning goal so the student can see progress toward the goal. “Did you notice that you have all the names capitalized this time. We’ve really been working on correct capitalization, and it looks like you’ve got it. Brookhart, Susan M. Educational Leadership “Feedback that Fits”

December 2007/January 2008

Knowledge of Results is: the amount of feedback

The wise teacher spends time using frequent and valid formative assessments and then finds time to consider the results of those assessments and make instructional changes accordingly. These frequent checkpoints are where students learn the most. They also allow teachers to give lots of feedback that influences learning and changes the course of their teaching if needed. Rick Wormeli Fair Isn’t Always Equal 2006

Probably the hardest decision concerns the amount of feedback. A natural inclination is to want to “fix” everything you see. To the teacher’s-eye view, that is where the perfect achievement of all learning goals is. But try to see things from the student’s-eye view. Are there any assignments coming up that would make it wiser to emphasize one point over another? And what about the student’s developmental level? Brookhart, Susan M. Educational Leadership “Feedback that Fits” December 2007/January 2008

Knowledge of Results is: the immediacy of feedback

Assessment guru Dylan Wiliam says that immediacy means American teachers may have to change their work habits. Dylan Wiliam using Assessment to Support Learning 2006 !He says that in order to give immediate feedack, teachers must spend TWO times as much time planning for instruction (i.e. creating formative assessments and organizing feedback opportunities) as they do grading papers! Currently most American teachers do the opposite!

Susan M. Brookhart, author of How to Give Good Feedback (ASCD 2008), says teachers should put themselves in their students’ places and ask, “When would a student want to hear feedback?” She says the answer is always the same--when the student is still thinking about the work!

Knowledge of Results is: the specificity of a

Specific feedback tells students: what they are doing well what needs to be improved what to do to improve it

!!!!!You have listed all the significant details of the Civil War. Now you just need to organize them for meaning. For example, you might write about them in chronological order (order of time) or in order of importance (most important to least important). You can pick the organization you like.

Feedback should be specific enough that the student knows what to do next, but not so specific that you do the work. Identifying errors or types of errors is a good idea, but correcting every error doesn’t leave the student anything to do. Brookhart, Susan M. Educational Leadership “Feedback that Fits” December 2007/January 2008

Knowledge of ResultsThe following teaching strategies can improve knowledge of results for students in your classroom:

➡Asking hinge questions that all students answer during a lesson and giving specific feedback related to those answers.

➡ Giving frequent formative assessments with immediate feedback and having students track progress toward learning goals.

➡Scheduling frequent learning conferences to give oral comments related to class assignments.

➡Changing grading procedures to (1) eliminate zeros, (2) use equal measures of central tendency for grading, and (3) emphasize formative assessments with comments as preparation for summative assessments with grades.

➡Writing teacher comments BUT NO GRADE on a product or project.

➡ Giving students ways to “self-check” homework or independent practice.

➡ Teaching students how to track their own progress on learning goals.

Time to Review

1. What is knowledge of results and how does it impact motivation?

2. What are the four critical attributes of knowledge of results?

What is motivation?

the student’s intent to attend !

evident in student’s behavior (i.e. effort) !

a critical component of achievement ! developed over time

In learning situations, it is. . .

Motivation is a need or desire that activates a person to do something that satisfies the need or desire.

INCREASING THEIR MOTIVATION

Part VI. Level of Concern

What is level of concern?

How does level of concern increase or decrease motivation?

How can teachers use level of concern to change students’ intent to learn?

LEVEL OF CONCERN is the amount of anxiety felt about gaining or losing something that you need or want (i.e. internal or external). It changes the level of accountability felt by the learner and may change performance.

What Is Level of Concern?

Having “butterflies” in your stomach is evidence of the internal anxiety that is connected to LEVEL OF CONCERN.

Have you ever admitted having a case of “butterflies” in your stomach?

The Level of Concern Continuum

No Concern

Moderate Concern

Too Much Concern

No Attention

“John, take as much time as you’d like to finish your health report. It’s not going to be graded anyway.”

Focus on the Task

“Carrie, you’ll have one week to finish your health report. I’ll be checking with you each day, though, to see how far along you are.”

Inability to Concentrate on the Task

“Mike, get this health report done by tomorrow. And, I am going to base your grade for the entire class on how well you do on it.”

Carol Cummings Teaching Makes a Difference 1986

“In the past, we believed that stress or concern was undesirable. Now we know that a moderate level of concern is essential to an individual’s putting forth effort. If you are satisfied with your appearance, job, or where you live, you will not put forth effort to change it. It is only when you become concerned that you will do something!” Madeline Hunter Mastery Teaching 1982

Moderate Levels of Concern Stimulate

Efforts to Learn

Can the Level of Concern Be Too High?“Emotion is a double-edged sword with the ability to enhance learning or impede it.” Pat Wolfe Brain Matters: Translating Research Into Classroom Practice 2006

“If you have no stress in your life, you probably won’t get out of bed in the morning. If you have too much stress in your life, chances are you won’t get out of bed in the morning. As with many things in life, more is not necessarily better, especially when it comes to the stress response. . .The stress response was designed for life in caves, but we don’t live there anymore. The contemporary human brain doesn’t distinguish between actual physical danger and psychological danger. It sets the same set of physiological chain of events in motion in either case. The blood pressure goes up, blood clotting elements are released into the blood stream, the immune system is suppressed, and cortisol and adrenaline are released to increase the “flight or fight” response and decrease thinking. !If you want to SEE the effects of excessive stress on students, watch those who are being bullied or laughed at, those who are uncomfortable about performing in public, those who are taking timed tests, those who are called on when not prepared, and those who have a general fear of failure.”

The human brain is hard wired to react negatively to

to prolonged high levels of concern.

More Time More Help More Resources Formative Assessments before Summative Assessment Low Stakes Test Results No Public Display More Wait Time with Questions Less Teacher Proximity Lower Level of Task Difficulty

Less Time Less Help Fewer Resources Summative Assessment without Formative Assessments High Stakes Test Results Public Display Less Wait Time with Questions More Teacher Proximity Higher Level of Task Difficulty

Teachers Affect the Level of Concern

Lowering Level of Concern

Raising Level of Concern

Level of Concern!

➡ Giving students “high visibility” and “low visibility” options for how they do presentations in your classroom.

➡ Checking class notes regularly.

➡ Requiring “a ticket out” (or some other form of closure) from each student to account for learning at the close of a lesson.

➡ Providing “do-over” options for high stakes learning assessments.

➡ Building a strong plan that combines frequent formative assessments before reasonable summative assessment in your classroom?

There are teaching strategies that let teachers use level of concern effectively in their classrooms.

As a leader, how do you develop and use level of concern with adults?

Can Grades Change Motivation?

It may come as a surprise to some, but low grades push students farther from our cause; they don’t motivate students. Recording a D on a student’s paper won’t light a fire under that student to buckle down and study harder. It actually distances the student farther from us and the curriculum. . .and lessens the level of investment the student had prior to receiving the low grade. Given this, imagine a student earning a string of low grades--how motivated will he or she be? !High grades also have issues. Alfie Kohn says that high grades have a little bump in motivation--students who earn an A want to earn another one. This is short-lived, according to Kohn, works only on the part of some students, and is extrinsic so it doesn’t help students’ intent to learn and achieve success in the future.

Using grades to try to make students care about learning may or may not be a good idea. Rick Wormeli Fair Isn’t Always Equal 2006

Time to Process

1.What is level of concern?

2. How does level of concern increase or decrease motivation?

3. How can teachers use level of concern to change students’ intent to learn?

If students are motivated to learn the content, achievement and learning are high.

If students are not motivated to learn the content, achievement and learning are low.

What does motivation have to do with learning?

This “Motivation: the driving force” infographic has been designed by Incblot.org, source: http://incblot.org/uncategorized/motivation-infographic/

For Next Time1. If a teacher asked you the following questions, how would you answer them?

A. What can I do to help students find success in my classroom?

B. How can I give feedback on everything students do?

C. What can I do to raise or lower students’ level of concern?