Motivation

    Going hand in hand with achievement comes the idea of motivation. Achievement involves a number of motivational processes. There are two different types of motivation, intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation is almost entirely based on internal factors. (Meaning that a student is self-motivated.) An intrinsically motivated person would have a great deal of self-determination, is very curious about new topics, challenges oneself and puts forth a lot of effort. On the other hand, extrinsic motivation includes having external forces to push one to be motivated. Externally motivated person would need an outside force such as incentives or rewards and punishments to motivate them to do their best work and achieve their goals. Some adolescents work hard and receive good grades because they are motivated to do good work and have some sort of self-satisfaction. Other students work hard and receive good grades because they want to make their parents or teachers happy, or to avoid disappointment.

    Now as a teacher we want all of our students to want to learn as much as they can all the time because they love the subject matter and they are intrinsically motivated. However, that is likely not to be the case for every single student. As teachers, it is our job to motivate our students when they need to be. We need to understand how student learning and achievement is influenced by different instructional practices and to use these practices to promote learning and achievement to all of our students. (Standard 2.3) Not only can we be the "extrinsic force" to help motivate our students, but we can also make steps to help our students to become more intrinsically motivated.

    Students who are in an intrinsically motivated classroom environment are more likely to receive good grades and higher standardized tests scores, whereas extrinsic motivation is negatively related to achievement outcomes (Lepper, Corpus, & Iyengar, 2005). However, this does not mean that a teacher should cut out extrinsic motivation completely, this just means that extrinsic motivation should be put out in moderation. For example rewards and punishments should be used to get students over the initial challenge and struggle to stay motivated. Once students have cleared that obstacle then the extrinsic forces should be removed as quickly as possible. If there still needs to be some external motivation, it should be small and less dramatic. What this does is teach students how to become more internally and intrinsically motivated. For example, in my future classroom if i have a large majority of students who constantly need external forces to motivate them to do good work I could give them a reward for bringing in articles about French news and write a short paragraph explaining the article. For a punishment I could deduct points for incomplete homework assignments or not participating in class. The goal is to get students to want to succeed and not only get a good or passing grade but truly understand the subject matter. To learn a foreign language is not an easy task but it can definitely be an interesting and fun one. As a small extrinsic motivator, I could reward my students at the end of the year for studying hard and improving on their skills by going out to a French Creole restaurant. A small thing such as saying, "I want you to study hard and stay focused for this last exam and I will take you all to lunch at a French restaurant." The gesture is neither a reward or a punishment per se but it is a way to motivate students to do their best work.

    Once students become more and more intrinsically motivated it allows them to set their own goals, determine how to achieve these goals that they have set for themselves, establish their own timeline and monitor their own progress. To become intrinsically motivated as a student not only helps out the teacher, but it is a great trait to have as a person. Not every part in a person’s life will there be an outside force to push them to do their best. At some point we all have to motivate ourselves to achieve the goals that we have set for ourselves.

    There also comes an issue though, where some students in the class are very motivated and others are not. These causes a gap in the classroom where some students may become bored and that they are not being challenged enough and others may feel that they are falling behind and just flat out give up. What we as teachers want for all of our students are for them to have an experience called "Flow". What flow is, is when students seem to "just get it", where they are on a roll and feel like they are being challenged and yet they feel like they are understanding things. (Brophy, 2004)

When a student has a low perceived level of skill and they feel that they are being challenged way to hard, they may feel anxiety. Students who have a low perceived skill level and a low perceived level, apathy occurs. When a student has a high skill level and a low perceived level of challenge they will experience boredom. And the magic happens when a student feels that he or she is being challenged and feels that their skill level matches the level of the challenge. This is called flow. What I can to in my future classroom to help my students to get "flow" is to engage my students in a context where they find it equally challenging, relevant and enjoyable. I may divide my class up into different stations where there are different activities and topics at each station. That way each student can have different options and opportunities to challenge themselves and learn new things.