Friday, July 25, 2014

Motivation is Everything

One of the most popular articles in the New York Times this weekend caught my attention. The article describes a recently published paper that examined the two types of motives that exist, internal (motives that are inherent in the task such as writing a blog for the joy of writing) and instrumental (motives that are not inherent to the task such as writing a blog to become a thought leader in education). The article further describes how all of the activities that we undertake have both internal and instrumental consequences (writing a blog can be both for the joy of writing and make the writer a thought leader in education), but that having both types of motives does not predict success and that, “instrumental motives are not always an asset and can actually be counterproductive to success.
The research, based on data collected from West Point cadets showed that, “remarkably, cadets with strong internal and strong instrumental motives for attending West Point performed worse on every measure than did those with strong internal motives but weak instrumental ones.” This seems to make sense when we step back and think about achieving any difficult goal. If we are motivated by the outcome, and not mastery of the task itself, we can easily step back when it becomes too difficult and find another path towards our goal.
I think often of my students that want to go to college, “to get a good job and make money.” When the Advanced Placement or introductory college classes become challenging, they see that there are much easier ways to get “good” jobs and make money.  Since the opportunity to learn or the experience of going to college were not what was driving them forward, they found it easy to pass up on the college dream.
 Like any successful article, I find that after reading it I have to reexamine how I approach my students about the value of an education. As an AVID teacher, a program designed to support marginalized students in their path to college, I often use instrumental motivation to get them to perform their best. I explain how success in school can lead to acceptance to a good college, earning a good job, and earning a living that will support a happy family. The article makes a clear point that, "for students uninterested in learning, financial incentives…for high performance may prompt them to participate, but it may result in less well-educated students."
After reading this, I see that I may need to step back from the instrumental motivation I use. As the article states, just because there are instrumental consequences of being good in school it does not mean that is the best way to motivate my students. Instead I need to focus on the value of learning for its own sake, which I have tried to do in my class and explained in a previous post, but need to continue to consciously incorporate into my classes. 
Just like everything in my teaching career, it ends up reminding me of coaching football. I want my offensive linemen to block well. I do not talk to them about the fact that the better we block, the more likely we are to win. I simply value the skill of blocking and motivate them to master the skills, irrespective of the outcome it plays in the game. Whether the player is a starter or will never see the field, I expect them to master the skills. The end goal is the by-product of doing everything else right. It is as true for one of my AVID students as it is for my offensive linemen.

Cross-posted from: http://notfillingthepail.blogspot.com/2014/07/the-trip-is-more-important-than.html

Please follow John @jhhines57 or check out his blog at notfillingthepail.blogspot.com

Friday, July 18, 2014

Learning From the Ground Up

While we do not often think about it, we can start redesigning schools with the physical space. As I think about how to structure a high school, I see ways to change the school simply with the furnishing. Open spaces, natural light and comfortable seats can all take a school from “cells and bells” to a place of innovation and invention. I have often said that I go onto college campuses and I see how I wish to teach. It is amazing to have open manicured lawns, wooded paths, and some time to be outside. Being at a traditional high school, cooped up inside, it makes me wish I could escape, not stay and learn. If I feel that way, and I had a positive experience at school, I know my students feel the same way.

Along with how the school is designed, I am interested to see how much schools could become like the best idea companies. Places like Google, Microsoft, and Twitter have to give their employees space to think. Google has become famous for its Genius Hour in which the employees are given time to simply pursue whatever interests them and some of their newest innovations (Google Glass, the Google self driving car) have come from this time. These companies thrive based on how well their employees think. This is how we should be approaching schools. We should treat our students and teachers like thinking, and developing new ideas, was their job. We should give them time to pursue their passions and interests. We have to trust teachers to develop systems and solutions for the issues they face. We then further need to trust students to learn and find passion in learning.

When we think about public education, it is frustrating that while we want to have schools as a place of learning, growing , innovation and invention we run them like factories. With fixed amounts of credits, minutes and grades, we are trying to mass produce graduates (the all important graduation rate as the critical marker of success) with teachers working on the assembly line. We have this system, not because we think it is the best, but because accountability demands clear criteria to measure (test scores, graduation rates). Free time to generate ideas and follow passions is not as measurable as 3 years of high school science or 55 minutes of Geometry.

While places like Google see Genius Hour as a way to allow its engineers to follow intellectual endeavors as vital to it continued success and relevance, it is hard to see this becoming part of our public schools in our current high stakes, high accountability climate. There are some educators calling for the changes, to make schools more like our most innovative and productive companies, it has failed to penetrate the average school and is not part of the much of the current popular reform conversation. Less is more is not as prevalent as more is more.

If we are serious about schools being places of idea production, we have to build them to support the creation of ideas. We have also recognize that learning is an organic process, not a mechanical one. We cannot simply speed things up and have students simply learn more in less time, just like we cannot double the fertilizer we put on crops and expect them to grow twice as much in half the time. What we can do is create a set of circumstances, a climate, that can support higher growth. This can be done many ways, but one way that might need to be considered includes natural light and some free time.


Please follow John @jhhines57 or check out his blog at notfillingthepail.blogspot.com