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My previous post reviewed research on extrinsic and intrinsic motivation, and described the four qualities that have been identified as critical to helping students motivate themselves: autonomy, competence, relatedness, and relevance.

In this post, I鈥檒l discuss practical classroom strategies to reinforce each of these four qualities.

Autonomy

Providing students with freedom of choice is one strategy for promoting learner autonomy. Educators commonly view this idea of choice through the lens of organizational and procedural choice. Organizational choice, for example, might mean students having a voice in seating assignments or members of their small learning groups. Procedural choice could include a choice from a list of homework assignments and what form a final project might take鈥攁 book, poster, or skit.

, however, believe that a third option, cognitive choice, is a more effective way to promote longer-lasting student autonomy. This kind of cognitive autonomy support, which is also related to the idea of ensuring relevance, could include:

• Problem-based learning, where small groups need to determine their own solutions to teacher-suggested and/or student-solicited issues鈥攚ays to organize school lunchtime more effectively, what it would take to have a human colony on Mars, strategies to get more healthy food choices available in the neighborhood, etc.
• Students developing their own ideas for homework assignments related to what is being studied in class
• Students publicly sharing their different thinking processes behind solving the same problem or a similar one
• Teachers using like one developed by Project Zero at Harvard and consisting of a simple formula: the teacher regularly asking, 鈥淲hat is going on here?鈥� and, after a student response, continuing with, 鈥淲hat do you see that makes you say so?鈥�

Competence

Feedback, done well, is ranked by education researcher as number 10 out of 150 influences on student achievement.

As has found, praising intelligence makes people less willing to risk 鈥渢heir newly minted genius status,鈥� while praising effort encourages the idea that we primarily learn through our hard work: 鈥淏en, it鈥檚 impressive that you wrote two drafts of that essay instead of one, and had your friend review it, too. How do you feel it turned out, and what made you want to put the extra work into it?鈥�

But how do you handle providing critical feedback to students when it鈥檚 necessary? Since that a ratio of positive-to-negative feedback of between 3-1 and 5-1 is necessary for healthy learning to occur, teachers might consider a strategy called 鈥減lussing鈥� that is used by Pixar animation studios with great success. interviewed author Peter Sims about the concept: 鈥淭he point, he said, is to 鈥榖uild and improve on ideas without using judgmental language.鈥�...聽An animator working on Toy Story 3 shares her rough sketches and ideas with the director. Instead of criticizing the sketch or saying no,聽the director will build on the starting point by saying something like, 鈥業 like Woody鈥檚 eyes, and what if his eyes rolled left?鈥� Using words like 鈥榓nd鈥� or 鈥榳hat if鈥� rather than 鈥榖ut鈥� is a way to offer suggestions and allow creative juices to flow without fear, Mr. Sims said.鈥�

鈥淎nd鈥� and 鈥渨hat if鈥� could easily become often-used words in an educator鈥檚 vocabulary!

Relatedness

A high-quality relationship with a teacher whom they respect is a key element of helping students develop intrinsic motivation. What are some actions that teachers can take to strengthen these relationships?

Here are four simple suggestions adapted from the ideas of聽:

1. Take a genuine interest in your students:聽Learn their interests, hopes, and dreams. Ask them about what is happening in their lives. In other words, lead with your ears and not your mouth. Don鈥檛聽make it a one-way street鈥攕hare some of your own stories聽too.

2. Act friendly in other ways:聽Smile, joke, and sometimes make a light, supportive touch on a student鈥檚 shoulder.

3. Be flexible聽and keep your eyes on the learning goal prize:聽One of my students had never written an essay in his school career. He was intent on maintaining that record during an assignment to write聽a persuasive essay about what students thought was the worst natural disaster. Because I knew two of his passions were football and video games, I told him that as long as he used the writing techniques we鈥檇 studied, he could write an essay on why his favorite football team was better than its rival or on why he particularly liked one video game. He ended up writing an essay on both topics.

4. Don鈥檛 give up on students:聽Be positive (as much as humanly possible) and encourage a .

Relevance

Have students write about how they see what they are learning as relevant to their lives. had students write one paragraph after a lesson sharing how they thought what they had learned would be useful to their lives. Writing one to eight of these during a semester led to positive learning gains, especially for those students who had previously been 鈥渓ow performers.鈥�

It is not uncommon for teachers to explicitly make those kinds of real-life connections. However, has also found that this kind of teacher-centered approach can actually be demotivating to some students with low skills. A student who is having a very difficult time understanding math or does just not find it interesting, for example, can feel threatened by hearing regularly from a teacher how important math is to his or her future. Instead of becoming more engaged in class, he or she may experience more negative feelings.

These researchers write that a聽鈥渕ore effective approach would be to encourage students to generate their own connections and discover for themselves the relevance of course material to their lives. This method gives students the opportunity to make connections to topics and areas of greatest interest to their lives.鈥�