Motivation in classroom

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What is motivation in education?

Motivation is the state that can maintain students’ attention and behavior as well as provides with more energy to needed to lead tasks to completion.

Motivation helps sustain activities over a period of time. In education, motivation can have a variety of effects on students’ behavior, preferences, and results.

For instance, motivation can:

❖ help us direct our attention toward tasks that need to be done,

❖ allow us to do these tasks in shorter periods of time as well as maintain attention during a longer time,

❖ minimize distractions and resist them better,

❖ affect how much information we retain and store,

❖ influence the perception of how easy or difficult tasks can appear. Most importantly, motivation urges to us perform an action. Without it, completing the action can be hard or even impossible

 There are two types of motivation: Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.

 What is intrinsic motivation?

Intrinsic motivation is doing something for the sake of personal satisfaction. The primary motivator is internal (e.g., you don’t expect to get anything in return). You are intrinsically motivated when you do something simply because it makes you feel good, is personally challenging, and/or leads to a sense of accomplishment. 

A person with intrinsic motivation wants to do a task for the pleasure involved in doing the task itself.

To build up intrinsic motivation:

v  Spark curiosity

v  Make students to work in groups

v  Student-Led Inquiry Learning

Sparking Curiosity

Sometimes a lesson or topic could be a bit boring for students so what we need is a hook to get students paying attention and genuinely interested in doing the task. For doing this we can turn a lesson into a detective scenario providing clues and ask the students to seek their own answers. Sparking curiosity can help us for building up students’ intrinsic motivation even with a lesson that might be considered boring for them.

Working in groups

Some students love working in groups while others hate it, but it’s a real fact that social interaction is something most humans crave, that’s why working in groups can be a really intrinsically fulfilling way to learn. Working in groups can be a great way to turn a difficult or bland task into one that is enjoyable to complete.

Student-Led Inquiry Learning

Learning based on student’s personal interests can really live up a classroom due to students get the opportunity to explore topics that they’re genuinely interested in and excited about.

What is extrinsic motivation

Extrinsic motivation is doing something to earn a reward or to avoid a punishment. The primary motivator is external. e.g., you expect to get something for completing a certain task, or you want to avoid a consequence for not doing something. 

A person with extrinsic motivation wants to do a task in order to receive a reward or avoid a punishment.

To build up extrinsic motivation:

v  Classroom Sticker / Star Charts

v  Token reward system

v  Educational computer games

Classroom Sticker / Star charts

Make up a table or chart with each students’ name and stick a start when a student answers a question correctly or finishes a task on time give extrinsic motivation.

Token reward system

Give extra points for developing a really good job creates extrinsic motivation which helps the student to keep going and want to get more and more extra points.

Educational computer games

Educational computer games are well-known for being based upon extrinsic motivators. When students finish a level they win tokens, points or ‘level ups’ for completing their tasks. Examples of this are in educational games like DuoLingo (a language learning app) and Kahn Academy (mostly for mathematics learning). There are also some interactive books (interchange-arcade) where students can get points for doing a good job answering the exercises correctly.

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References 

• AsapSCIENCE. 2016, January 7.The science of Motivation [Archivo de video]. Recuperado de https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZT-FZqfxZA 

• Extrinsic & Intrinsic Motivation Examples – What’s the Difference? https://sprigghr.com/blog/hr-professionals/extrinsic-intrinsic-motivationexamples-whats-the-difference/ 

• Intrinsic & Extrinsic Motivation – 18 Classroom Examples https://helpfulprofessor.com/intrinsic-vs-extrinsicmotivation/#Intrinsic_Motivation_Examples_in_the_Classroo