Last week I played around with a maths formula that might help us see what is required to enable learning that is driven by learner interest. Guy Claxton made a few comments that helped to elaborate on that idea:
“part of the teacher's job is (a) to help/coach students so that they are better able to monitor for themselves when they are in the 'sweet spot' of learning”
“always be on the lookout for the next little increment in independence or autonomy that you might try to give them”
“I think you need to cultivate a history with a class of talking about the processes of learning”
This week I’d like to pick up on motivation, because I think it’s something that is easily seen and, if present, a good indicator of the other three factors that Annie Murphy Paul says help develop learner interest: competence, self-efficacy and attention.
Intrinsic motivation is the holy grail for educators, and its presence is crucial if you want learners to be in control of their learning. I explored the conditions required for intrinsic motivation in one of the earliest posts on The Smata Bulletin. For me, of real interest were the huge roles fantasy and the culture of an environment play.
I think we intuitively know this. Having the mental space to build inner worlds, to take an idea and run with it, to envision things that are not yet real spurs us to action. But it is risky to act on what’s imagined and try to make it real or to explore it in concrete terms, which is why we need to be in a context where we feel a positive sense of connection and acceptance.
Can we see when someone is motivated? I think so. We sense an undercurrent of excitement, and often that someone is in the zone or experiencing something like Csíkszentmihályi’s idea of flow. We see them doing (even if that doing involves staring into the distance, deep in thought!), feeling in control of what is happening and finding a means to express themselves. Recognising the presence of these things can help teachers when they think about tasks and activities, and the appropriate degree of difficulty. Indeed, attending to these things is a kind of formative assessment that helps teachers know what to do next.
It strikes me that, with the school year starting for many of you, one of the best things you can do right now is work on class culture if you want to promote motivation. Go for walks. Spend time getting to know one another. Share interests. Show an interest. Go softly. Eat some food together. Flatten the power structure. Talk about learning and how it feels to get carried away by something. Build a feeling of connection and acceptance now so that students can step beyond what’s known later.
In doing this I think you’ll go a long way to cultivating that history of knowing the ‘sweet spot of learning’ Guy speaks of. You’ll glean a bunch of small data about what makes your learners tick too, data that will make it more likely you’ll hit that ‘sweet spot’ as you respond to their learning interests.
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