Research on Student Motivation

When I talk with educators about the importance of using modern tools in the classroom, student motivation is often one of my top reasons for implementing 21^st century tools. I stress that school should be at least as exciting for students as their ”other” world in which they constantly communicate with peers, have access to multimedia-rich games and movies, and can quickly look up information they need. When students walk into buildings that have changed little since the 1990s, they must at times feel as though they are entering a museum of historical relics rather than a place where exciting discoveries and conversations can happen.

In What Works in Schools , Marzano (2003) outlines five lines of research on student motivation. As I read, I began wondering how this research aligns with 21st century learning skills and environments as outlined by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills.

Five lines of research on student motivation:

1. Drive theory – Students are either driven by striving for success or fear of failure. As students move through their K-12 years, they develop a strong tendencies to be either success oriented or failure avoidant. Those who are success oriented are motivated to conquer new tasks. Students who are failure avoidant may develop self-handicapping strategies.
2. Attribution theory – Students attribute success to ability, luck, effort, and task difficulty. Since the only one of these that a student truly has control over is effort, it is paramount that teachers help students to understand the importance of effort and its affect on achievement. Students are capable of developing “learned helplessness,” yet they are equally capable of developing “learned optimism.”
3. Self-worth theory is based on the premise that self-acceptance is one of our highest priorities as humans. In this theory, accomplishments  play a large part in determining self-worth. Those students who put forth much effort but gain little accomplishment can quickly have diminished self-worth if their effort is not rewarded.
4. Emotions play a large role in human motivation. They can sometimes override our rational and/or cognitive thought.
5. Self-system – Here, Marzano cited the work of Csikszentmihalyi and Maslow, in that for students to reach self-actualization (Maslow’s highest level) or “flow experiences” (Csikszentmihalyi), students need:
   1. freedom to set clear, meaningful, individual goals
   2. resources so that student can become immersed in the work necessary to carry out goals
   3. self-awareness in the student of how well he or she is progressing and making adjustments as necessary
   4. enjoying short-term successes while keeping the overarching long-term goals in mind

#2 under self-system caught my attention: “resources so that the student can become immersed.” For me, this includes books and encyclopedias as well as real-time access to information, tools that allow students to collaborate, and interactive tools to help students learn and master basic skills. Let’s face it; when was the last time you became immersed in an overhead or PowerPoint presentation?

Based on these five ideas on student motivation, Marzano outlines action steps for educators that can positively impact student motivation: (Italics are my own)

1. Provide students with feedback on their knowledge gain.
2. Provide students with tasks and activities that are inherently engaging.
3. Provide opportunities for students to construct and work on long-term projects of their own design.
4. Teach students about the dynamics of motivation and how those dynamics affect them.

As I read this chapter on student motivation, I was struck by how some of these ideas echo some of the standards by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, particularly regarding Learning Environments, Life and Career Skills, and Creativity and Innovation.

21st century learning environments include games and activities that give students real-time feedback on their progress. These could be in the form of online tutorials, quizzes, and games or as a whole-class activity using clickers.

21st century learning environments, when equipped with multimedia-rich resources and opportunities for students to collaborate with peers and experts in the classroom and beyond, are inherently engaging to students, tapping into their own comfort in these settings and using tools they use in their social or home life (or would like to).

Finally, I find that when teachers create 21st century learning environments and truly integrate technology, their teaching style changes. They are no longer the experts who disseminate the information, but the guides for long-term projects, often designed by the students themselves.

Several months ago, I blogged about my observations while conducting a technology audit. It was amazing to me how obvious it was how technology impacted student engagement. I found myself wondering if these teachers ever observe each other to see the differences.

Are there other correlations (or dichotomies) that I haven’t included here? In thinking about your own experiences, either as teachers, facilitators, administrators, etc., what evidence have you seen that 21st century learning environments have an impact on student engagement?

The conversation is shifting

I haven’t blogged in many, many months for various reasons. I made a promise to myself, though, that after T+L in Nashville I’d give it another go.

The biggest idea that I took away from T+L is that the conversation is shifting. This observation has been further supported in conversations with teachers and administrators while currently conducting a technology audit. The conversation used to be about whether or not technology made a difference, how to get across the idea that it’s not about the “wires and plugs,” but about the motivation, differentiation, student engagement, and teaching efficiency that happens when a teacher has all the modern tools available and knows how to properly use them. The conversation has shifted, at least in my experiences lately, in that no one is denying the importance of using these tools anymore. In recent conversations, people are no longer questioning “why technology.” When I ask teachers about their vision of the future of education, I now commonly hear words such as “facilitator,” “projects,” “collaboration,” “seamless integration.” Teachers are aware of 21st Century learning skills, Prensky, the flat world, and other ideas that I can recall at one time only hearing in the “techie” world. Is it possible that the echo chamber has spiraled into mainstream conversations? Are we close to a tipping point in changing outdated methods of education?

Is using 21st century tools an option?

I recently had the opportunity to visit some classes at the elementary, middle, and high school levels. I observed some things that led me to truly question whether it should be an option for a teacher to say, “I’m just not that into technology.”

In one 8th grade class, a teacher was giving an algebra lesson using an interactive whiteboard, a remote tablet, and an enhanced PPT, with graphics, movies embedded, etc. He would walk around the room as he used the tablet, circling areas on the screen to which he wanted to draw attention. He had the kids go up to the whiteboard and demonstrate problem-solving techniques. EVERY SINGLE STUDENT WAS ENGAGED. One student even had an assignment (I’m assuming from another class), in which she had to take care of an interactive doll. During class, the doll started “crying” and the student had to “feed” her, sit the doll on her desk, rub her back, etc. Even with all of these distractions, the girl was completely absorbed in the lesson, raising her hand and offering answers.

Later, I was walking down the halls of a high school. I was amazed at how little had changed since 1990….same lectures, same overhead projectors. I observed another algebra class in which the students were graphing equations. There was definite learning going on, but in one exchange I observed, a student raised his hand to ask for clarification of how the graph will change given two similar equations. The teacher drew a quick graph on the overhead and showed the student the difference. The student nodded, made a note, and the class went on. I’m assuming the student made a note to help him remember the information for an upcoming test, but did he really understand the difference in the two equations? How would this lesson have been different if he had a laptop on his desk and was using interactive software to watch the graph change as he entered different equations?

In a final observation, two identical elementary lessons (by content, at least) were being taught: one with every child using a Palm, the other by listening to a lecture. In the first class, every child was engaged and conversing with a nearby student about the lesson. In the other classroom, every corner was occupied by a student who had presumably been sent there for disciplinary reasons….plus an additional student at the file cabinet corner.

Is it any longer acceptable to teach with outdated methods, using archaic technology? How do we balance honoring teachers’ comfort levels with technology vs. creating learning environments that excite, engage, and provide our students with the experiences they need to do the best work they can do?

PBS’ new Media Infusion

PBS Teachers will launch this Thursday, March 1st. It’s a revamp of the highly popular PBS TeacherSource. Included in the reformatting is a blog about their many multimedia games and resources, called Media Infusion. Each month, they will bring on a guest blogger to offer ideas on using PBS’ resources to fellow educators. I was honored to be asked to be their first guest blogger.

Here’s a full description from the PBS Teacher Preview email: The new PBS Teachers Web site is slated to launch March 1, and will replace PBS TeacherSource. The comprehensive site will serve as the starting place for PBS’s many educational resources for teachers from pre-K through 12th grade. Among other features, the site’s new search engine will help educators find streaming video of PBS television programs and other multimedia features, in addition to thousands of downloadable lesson plans correlated to state and national standards. Be sure to visit Media Infusion, our new blog for sharing ideas about using media and technology in the classroom.

Check it out on Thursday and let me know what you think!

Polycom Workshop

I delivered a Polycom workshop today, which was interesting to compare to my usual Marratech sessions that I do every two weeks. With the Polycom camera I like that both parties can have their mikes on at the same time and have a normal conversation. I also liked that my nose didn’t have to be 5 inches away from a Web cam, but that instead I was able to sit and talk as normally as I would in a regular meeting.

Drawbacks however, included the participants not being able to see the presenter and the PowerPoint at the same time and constantly getting disconnected.

We were covering three strategies from Classroom Instruction that Works: Nonlinguistic Representation, Generating & Testing Hypotheses, and Cues, Questions, and Advance Organizers. These, I have to say, are three of my favorite strategies to cover, especially given the technology that can beautifully support these activities with students.

What seemed to be the most popular resources that I showed them were tools for organizing & brainstorming with students. Following an advance organizer activity in which groups came up to the camera and showed their paper graphic organizers (which were very cool!), I showed them some tools that they could use for the same activity, but then could share and edit as needed. First, I showed them Inspiration, which many districts already use….by far the best tool of its type, I think.

For those schools who may not be able to afford Inspiration, however, there are some emerging and exciting tools coming out that not only allow you to create a mind-map as you brainstorm, but also allow you to invite collaborators to help you. Gliffy and Bubbl.us are examples. Howard Pitler and I were experimenting today with Bubbl.us, sharing maps we’d made. It’s still in its beta stage, but I think it has great potential. I personally prefer its more intuitive key strokes to Gliffy.

Another tool that teachers don’t often know about is Microsoft Word’s diagram tool. Open a Word doc and go to INSERT > DIAGRAM. There are a number of templates from which to choose and you can add as many “bubbles” as you need. This is perfect for those teachers wanting to dive into electronic forms of graphic organizers, but feel most comfortable with the Office products. The diagram tool is not sharable, unlike the Web-based tools, but may be a good “get-your-feet-wet” activity with teachers & students.

One high note of the workshop came at the very end. I had told them when I introduced myself that I was thrilled to be working once again with Southerners, having grown up in Georgia. As we were saying good-bye, I overheard a teacher remark, “She should say ‘bye y’all”…so I did. There’s nothing like a warm “‘bye-y’all” among Southerners!

ISTE Webinar

I received this email today from ISTE:

WEBINAR: Teaching with Digital Images!

 

I wanted to make you aware of a high-interest webinar to be conducted by ISTE on Wednesday, February 21. Featuring the authors of one of ISTE’s most popular publications, Teaching with Digital Images: Acquire, Analyze, Create, Communicate. (Glen Bull & Lynn Bell). Learn more and register at www.iste.org … lower-middle of the homepage. I hope you will register and participate.

Mentoring, Days 2 & 3 and tech glitches

Day two of mentoring in Tonopah went really well. One teacher is doing amazing things with his 3D animation students. (Click here to see their work).

Another is having her kindergarten, first, and second grade students work together to create a presentation on an animal of their choice…but taking it a step further by having them research an environmental issues associated with the animal and propose suggestions for solving the issue. The students will then give each other feedback on the presentation. To practice working with the software and to have an example to show the students, we created a presentation on Great Basin Spadefoot toad. You learn the most interesting things with this job!

The third teacher is using a wiki (PBWiki) for the first time to organize his American history assignments. He plans on posting the assignment, then having each student post their answers, writing, etc. on their own page on the wiki. He’ll compare this to his current method of emailing the assignment to his students and having them email their responses back. I’ll be interested in hearing his opinions of comparing the two.

Day 2 would have finished on a high note, but then my computer crashed and we overloaded the server here at my hotel asI was teaching an online class that evening. The teachers on the other end were extremely patient, but it really bugs me when things like that happen. I really like Marratech in the fact that it’s open source, I can share a Powerpoint presentation, and I can see the participants, but I sometimes wish it had a more intuitive interface and didn’t get hung up so easily when sharing my desktop.

Day 3 was one of those days where you’re singing “I love my job, I love my job.” Two teachers set up Classblogmeister accounts and are blogging for the first time with their students. This was my first intense look at David Warlick’s educational blogging software and I’m impressed with the ability that teachers have to create password-protected blogs w/o having to have email addresses for their students. Thank you, David!

Another teacher is using PhotoStory with her 2nd graders to create a movie about a recent tour of the courthouse they did. They participated in a mock trial in which their teacher was accused of throwing a snowball. They took on the roles of defense attorney, judge, jurors, etc. Fun!

Finally, a class of sixth graders is going to retell their own versions of fairy tales using claymation. One of my favorite sites for showing examples of claymation is from Stillwater Junior High in Minnesota. You can tell how much time the students spent on the photos to give the sense of motion in these movies (and they’re educational to boot!)

Whew! Fun week here, but I’m really looking forward to getting home to Denver.

Mentoring, Day 1

I’m in Nevada right now mentoring teacher leaders with new project ideas with their students. One teacher wants her Kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd graders to use an easy drawing program to create a retelling of story that they will put into a presentation. She was planning on using Microsoft Paint, but I showed her TuxPaint, an open-source drawing program for children. She loved the program, but one issue we ran into was getting the completed files onto the desktop (or another folder) so that we could import them into another program. Has anyone out there used TuxPaint before who could help us with this issue?

Another teacher is working with his 3rd-graders to create a wiki about the US States. He’s using PBWiki, (one of my favorites!) and his having each student take a state. He’s planning on using the comments feature of the wiki for his students give peer feedback and suggestions. He’s created a sample report on Nevada to serve as a guideline. Because he only has seven students, however, he’d like to extend this project to another teacher (or two) who would have their students create the pages for the missing states. Fun! His wiki is http://beattye.pbwiki.com and if there are any teachers or anyone who works with teachers out there, please reply if you think you know of a class who’d like to participate. I just found out today that PBWiki has updated their editor, so instead of learning all the “wiki-ese,” it’s a WYSIWYG interface. I had to really navigate to find it, though. To see the new editor, log into your wiki, then go to SETTINGS > EDITOR and switch from “Classic editor” to “New point-and-click editor.”

My last session of the day was with a teacher who will be using movie-making as a math assessment with 2nd – 8th graders. Together, we created a list of vocabulary terms the students have studied which they will need to include in their movie (decimal, percentage, fraction, mean, median, mode, range, estimation, bar graph, and circle graph). The students will be given bags of different colored candy and will have to create graphics using the candy to show that they know & understand the vocabulary & concepts. I can’t wait to see this project!

Fun day!

Six ed tech trends to watch in ‘07

I’m glad that EdNewsBytes blogged about this, because I read this article at 4:30 on a Friday afternoon at work, then promptly forgot to blog about it in anticipation of weekend plans. It’s a great (and short!) read from eSchoolNews, one of those articles that leaves you starry-eyed and going, “Wow….”

In short, here are the six trends:

Trend No. 1: The leveling power of the World Wide Web

Trend No. 2: Cloud computing

Trend No. 3: Service-oriented architecture

Trend No. 4: The gathering SCORM (Sharable Content Object Reference Model)

Trend No. 5: Telepresence and anytime, anywhere education

Trend No. 6: 21st-century learning

Of some of these trends, I was already well-aware. Of others, I had heard the term, but had a much better understanding after reading the article. It’s worth checking out.

How the new Web is changing how we work, communicate, live

Thanks to the Fischbowl for posting this video….an elegant look at how our own Web use is evolving, changing the way we interact with each other and organize information. (4:31)