Horner, S., Bhattacharyya, S., O’Connor, E. (2008) Modeling: It’s more than just
imitation. Childhood Education 84 (4) 219-222

The authors illustrate the functions, consequences, and characteristics of learning through modeling. They also outline eight strategies to promote effective modeling. This article does a good job of linking classroom activities and life moments to cognitive theory and research.

Earl, L. (2003). Using Assessment to Motivate Learning. In Assessment as learning:
Using classroom assessment to maximize student learning. (pp. 67-77).
Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

The idea here is to move from our traditional system of rewards and punishments (grades) and more toward an assessment model that is more motivating because it is relevant, imaginative and scaffolded. Relevant assessment helps students to make connections between curriculum, assessment, instruction and student’s daily lives. It challenges while reinforcing what they’ve learned. Open ended, imaginative assessment allows for a range of responses and solutions and can tap into students’ individual interests. Scaffolding allows for appropriate challenges that nurture growth without fear or discouragement. It builds confidence by being ongoing and timely. It happens in the middle of teaching and learning.

Sullo, B. (2007). Inspiring through collaboration. In Activating the desire to
learn. (pp. 97-111). Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

An interesting chapter relating the story of “Ron,” a successful principal who used internal control theory as a key tool in his leadership style. We get information about Ron and his success from interviews with some of his staff members and Ron himself. This was a good narrative describing an effective implementation of the internal control theory of motivation.

Sullo, B. (2007). “Consequence is not a four-letter word. In Activating the desire
to learn (pp. 65-67). Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

This chapter relates a student describing the characteristics of a “good” teacher or classroom. This teacher talks a lot about choice, teaching about the concept of consequences, as well as giving kids choices of ways to be successful and creating a sense of community by using and mixing various groups of students to do the work of learning. She also makes school “fun” by assigning projects

Sullo, B. (2007 Helping students value learning. In Activating the desire to
learn (pp. 42-54). Alexandria, VA: ASCD

Here Sullo, recognizing that identifying “good feelings” related to success is key to triggering intrinsic motivation relates a story about a fictitious counselor and student to tell a story about how to move from rewards to a more intrinsic motivation model to get Paul to value school and learning and thus work harder without the extrinsic reward.

Sullo, B. (2007). Understanding internal motivation. In Activating the desire to
learn (pp. 5-14). Alexandria, VA: ASCD

This chapter provides a comprehensive overview of internal control psychology with an emphasis on choice theory-that “we have four basic psychological needs that must be satisfied to be emotionally healthy: belonging or connecting, power or competence, freedom, fun.” “These needs lead us to create a unique idealized world that motivates us.” And everything we do and strive for is an attempt to fulfill one of these needs. This theory also states that each of us assign positive or negative values to information based on whether or not it fills a need “at that moment.” So we each experience the same events (or information) differently. I enjoyed this quote from the chapter: “Educators who understand internal control psychology understand that “reality” is more complicated than it first appears.”

Sullo, B. (2007). Where’s the evidence. In Activating the desire to learn (pp. 5-14).
Alexandria, VA: ASCD

In this chapter, Sullo contends that “evidence is substantial and impressive” when it comes to using internal motivational strategies to create positive cultural change within schools. He cites a number of different reports, authors and case studies that support the idea of internal motivation and control. He goes over specific examples where teachers and schools adopted strategies based on choice theory, control theory, and concepts of internal control psychology such as class meetings, the responsible thinking process (RTP), community building, inclusion, reality therapy, social responsibility, and achievement motivation. In each example Sullo focuses on data to support the use of intrinsic motivation with data related to incidence of violence, negative behaviors, disruptions and high-stakes test tools.

Jensen, E. (1998) Motivation and Rewards. Teaching with the brain in mind (62-70).
Alexandria, VA: ASCD

Great article. Jensen starts this chapter by introducing us to a bit of the history around the research surrounding intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. While educators routinely use extrinsic/stimulus-response rewards it turns out that this type of motivation is only truly effective for “simple physical actions” not for “solving challenging cognitive problems, writing creatively, (or) designing and completing projects.” So many of today’s classrooms are bases on flawed theory. He then goes on to explain how and why intrinsic motivation works better. That the brain is often perfectly satisfied to “pursue novelty and curiosity, embrace relevance, and bathe in the feedback from success” because it (the brain) creates it’s own rewards-called opiates. He also offers a great model for increasing intrinsic motivation in “Supercamp” a 10-day camp he co-founded.

Erwin, J. (2003) Giving students what they need. Educational Leadership 61 (1) 19-
23.

Erwin begins this article by stressing the importance of relationships and the evils of external motivation. He then counters by briefly explaining Choice Theory and outlines the importance five key needs that he claims are the source of internal motivation:

• Survival–support safety, respect, order, water breaks)
• Love and Belonging–learn names, greet students upon entering, team and community building activities, and content-related discussion
• Power-personal growth skills that increase the quality of our lives and feelings of self-worth (learning styles, discuss value of curriculum, give students a voice in the classroom.
• Freedom-freedom from stress, fear, disrespect, monotony; and freedom to go where you want, choose where to be and what to do.
• Fun-children at play are learning how to cooperate, create, and negotiate.

Sagar R. (2002). Lessons from skateboarders: What motivates young people to
master the challenges of sports? How can we inspire the same level of
motivation in our classrooms? Educational Leadership. September, 34-37.

Sager uses somewhat of an athletic metaphor to explain how to motivate students and not be “left behind.” He describes CBUPO, his acronym for the five needs we all want to satisfy: The need to feel Competent, to Belong, to feel Useful, Potent and Optimistic. In this article he describes each need and goes into detail about how to build these feelings in our students. Hint: High stakes testing and student comparisons (grade levels) are not one of them. This was a great article with lots of examples and new ideas.”

Rogers, S., Renard, L. (1999). Relationship-driven teaching. Educational
Leadership. September, 34-37.

This article describes how fulfilling students’ emotional needs fosters a more motivating culture for learning. The authors explain two underlying principals that support relationship-driven teaching: “seeking first to understand,” and “managing the learning context, not the learners.” They then outline six standards that make up a framework for this strategy:

• Safety-creating an environment free from physical and emotional danger (embarrassment)
• Value-creating opportunities for students to create value and meaning in their work and study
• Success-learning activities must be challenging and offer regular feedback indicating that the student is making significant progress toward mastery.
• Involving-students must have a “meaningful stake” in what is happening in the classroom.
• Care-the idea that a student is respected and liked contributes to that student’s need for love and belonging
• Enable-teachers must continually learn and use best practices that enable learning such as brain-based techniques or multiple intelligences.

Tileston, D. (2004). Motivation to begin a lesson or task. In What Every teacher
should know about motivation (pp. 19-33) Corwin Press.

This chapter included a lot of information about motivation, learning, attention, the brain and emotional intelligence, learned helplessness, stress and importance. It explained many examples about how to use emotion to motivate (or at least not de-motivate) students, listing emotional states such as suspense, curiosity, anticipation, hope, fun, acceptance, surprise, self-confidence, intrigue, and importance. It spoke to the importance of locus of control in a student’s perception about their own success, listing either ability, effort, task difficulty, or luck as reasons they believe contribute to success or failure.

One quote within a section describing threats, specifically “threats based on what we do or do not know” was related to giving students specific direction, instructions and expectations:
“There was a time when I would say to my students, ‘I want you to do this at quality level.’ What I soon found was that what I consider to be a quality level and what they consider to be a quality level were very different. By giving them a matrix that showed specifically what I wanted, I was able to raise the quality level of their work considerably. I believe that students would do work at a quality level more often if they know what we meant by that phrase.”

Muir, M. (2001). What engages underachieving middle school students in learning?
Middle School Journal. November, 37-42.

Muir did a micro study of six underachieving students asking them questions about the ways in which they are motivated. He found that while they were indeed motivated intrinsically describing hands-on, curiosity, pace, and personal goals, the students he interviewed were more motivated by relationship factors such as trust and respect. Making meaningful relevant connections as well as offering choices that match a student’s learning style was also important to those interviewed.

Strong, R., Silver, H., Perini, M. & Tuculescu, G. (2003) Boredom and its opposite.
Educational Leadership. September 24-29.

This interesting article tackles the subject of motivation by asking “reluctant learners” questions, discussing, administering surveys about motivation and boredom. They found four “natural human interests that (if included in curriculum) not only eliminate boredom, but create its opposite: “abiding interest in the content that students need to learn.” These interests are:

• The Drive Toward Mastery-When students “did not think they could succeed . . . they shut their minds down.” Tools for increasing mastery are clearly defining the goal of the lesson or unit, give students opportunities to see models of different competencies, model skills clearly, give on-the-spot feedback.
• The Drive To Understand-”appears in our delight in puzzles, excitement about new ideas, and sensitivity to flaws, gaps, and contradictions. Tools for increasing understanding are organizing units around questions designed to provoke thoughts/concerns, use rich and challenging text, teach to collect, organize weigh the value of different points of view, allow students to challenge and correct each other.
• The Drive Toward Self Expression-We all have a drive to be unique and some craving to have that uniqueness recognized. This is about expressing creativity. Tools-allow choice, model strategies students need to shape projects, make a rich set of samples available, build in time for students to explore their work.
• The Need To Relate-interact with others, share and work together.

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. New York, NY: Harper & Row Publishers, Inc.

Csikszentmihalyi, a psychologist from the university of Chicago, defines the concept of flow as a peak state in which psychic energy is exerted in such a way that concentration is so focused that it leads to absolute absorption in an activity. Time is distorted. Self-consciousness dissolves along with fear and other emotional distractions. People experiencing flow report feeling focused, strong, alert and in effortless control. This sounds an awful lot like a powerful intrinsic motivator to me.

Indeed since this book was published and his theory has hit the mainstream, flow theory has been used widely in many different fields-including the development of curriculum and the study of life satisfaction and intrinsic motivation. This is a fascinating read. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in intrinsic motivation.

Of course this raises all kinds of concerns. But I like it. Not so much because of the reward (I actually very much dislike the extrinsic reward–can you say bribe?). Talk about throwing money at a problem.

But maybe this program will get people talking about the real challenges related to motivating students.

Wienies are extra.

Wienies are what you give the audience after they think they’re already satisfied.

Wienies are what you add when what you have is good – but not good enough.

No boss will demand that you add a wienie. In fact, your boss would prefer that you don’t waste your time with wienies.

A wienie is something you add for the sheer joy of it–not for any extrinsic reward or result or expectation. A wienie is what takes a project from good to great–a lesson or unit from beneficial to memorable.

Intelligence, it turns out, is a high-priced option. It takes more upkeep, burns more fuel and is slow off the starting line because it depends on learning — a gradual process — instead of instinct. Plenty of other species are able to learn, and one of the things they’ve apparently learned is when to stop.