visual blog post motivating students

1. Motivating Students
Visual Blog by Linda
Buckmaster

2. As parents and educators,
we often focus on results
and external motivators by
dangling praise and rewards
to children.

3. When students reach college, their desire to
learn shifts to a quest for grades.
Some become disengaged as they do not see
relevance in this quest.
Educators then feel the need to resort to
motivating by offering the carrot and stick.

4. Motivation is key...
Motivation regulates all human
behaviour and unless, our
students have it (and more
importantly sustain it) – they
are not going to gain the skills
required in the global
workplace.

5. “We cannot motivate students; we can only create the
conditions in which students can motivate
themselves.
We cannot MAKE kids learn; we can make them behave a
certain way, memorize and complete tasks in the
short-term when we are supervising them but this
does not mean they are gaining the skills and
receiving the support needed to be learners.”
Edward Deci and Richard Ryan; the University of Rochester (2009)

6. MOTIVATIONAL
LADDER
The challenge of a
learning activity is
represented as a ladder.
• The bar moves up the
ladder from boredom, to
flow, to anxiety as a
button that increases
challenge is pushed.
• The bar moves back down
the ladder as the
button to decrease the
challenge is pushed. At
the bottom of the
ladder is boredom,
which occurs when a
student is not
sufficiently
challenged.
Click here for animation ladder or go to end of
sliideshow

7. Flow
Jeff Wilhelm PhD research (2006) shows
a link to Czikszentmihalyi's (1990)
conditions of "flow" experience.
Required conditions for situated
motivation and flow:
• Clear goals
• Continual feedback
• A sense of developing competence
• Challenge that requires an
appropriate level of skill
• Focus on the immediate experience

8. Strategies to increase students'
classroom motivation:
Turner and Paris (1995) term these as the “Six C's
of Motivation:”
• choice,
• challenge,
• control,
• collaboration,
• constructing meaning, and
• consequences.
These strategies are extremely flexible and can be
modified and adapted as needed.

9. Ms Williams adopts the Six C’s of Motivation in her classroom.
Her students work in groups publishing a newspaper in English.
Ms. Williams lets the group choose the topic for their stories; they
take control, and collaborate together.
The teacher helps the students construct meaning by relating the
project to the real world.
Students are motivated because the newspaper will be published.
SIX C's OF MOTIVATION MS WILLIAMS MOVIE

10. Student motivation is probably
the primary and the most
critical challenge facing
teachers.
It’s under our control to make
sure our classrooms are
motivating environments

11. http://www.coe.uga.edu/epltt/images/6csAnimation.swf
• Shiang-Kwei Wang and Seungyeon Han
The University of Georgia
• http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/affective/motivation.html
• Csikszentmihalyi, M. 1990. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York: Harper & Row.
• Smith, M. W., & Wilhelm. J. (2002). "Reading don't fix no Chevys": Literacy in the lives of young men. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
• Smith, M. and Wilhelm, J. 2006 Going with the Flow. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann
Movie link:
Motivational ladder
www.coe.uga.edu/epltt/images/flow.swf