Scholars have approached the mystery human motivation in essentially three ways:
1. Focus on learner characteristics ...self worth, achievement motivation, attribution theory, test anxity and competence.
2. Teacher Characteristics and instructional methodology...teacher expectations, teacher rewards mastery learning, effects of extrinsic motivation, classroom climate for learning, and cooperative learning.
3. Lesson content that appeal to student , Ten intrinsic appeals: novelty, surprise, anticipation, security, challenge, completion, application, feedback, identification and competition..
A word about Intrinsic appeals
Almost all subject matter, no matter how dull, mundane, or prosaic it may seem at first, has latent intrinsic appeals that our most effective teachers have learned how to reveal to students. Each appeal has the power to attract and hold students' attention, but different appeals "appeal" to different students. What captures one students' attention might not affect another, and what appeals to one student today might miss the mark tomorrow. These facts are known to almost all experienced teachers, but beyond the facts is a less obvious logical conclusion: to capture student attention, the effective teacher must reveal as many different appeals as possible in any given lesson. And varying degrees of motivation will result from any one student's responding to more than one appeal. Such a student might get "really hooked" when the powers of several appeals combine, for the laws of probability are at work here: motivating students is a percentage game. Use one appeal and reach 50%, two appeals 75%, and three appeals 80% plus!
Here is what I mean by "intrinsic appeals". First, I distinguish between an "appeal" with the subject matter and "motivation" within the student. That is, an appeal is a characteristic of content, while a motivation is the impulse, the will, the drive, the feeling that lies within the student. Second., intrinsic appeals are different from extrinsic appeals or "gimmicks" that catch the student's interest by means of alluring activities or non-content related rewards. Third, intrinsic motivation is not the same as "fun". Motivated students do not necessarily "enjoy" their learning, but they do feel involved and compelled to work at their learning tasks. Finally, the duration of student involvement is neither constant nor predictable. The strength of any appeal varies with the student, the time, the place, and the task.
I. Novelty
Novelty is the opposite of routine. Routine lessons in today's schools include completing ditto sheets, reading book chapters and answering questions about them, and memorizing formulas for a test. Novelty is something different, something incongruous.
Teachers can signal novelty with cue words and phrases: "here's something different..." "I'll bet you've never met anybody like the characters you'll meet in this book..." "For the first time this year, we are going to ..." "You are the only class in Kalamazoo to ..."
If the activity or content is truly different from anything else in the students' experience, then it has potential "novelty appeal"
Some novel concepts and skills need no cue words, such as the beginning of the following story: "There I was, eating my lunch, when a small monkey sat down beside me and started discussing his home, a tropical rain forest."
Novelty attracts attention but does not hold it. In other words, novelty wears off. When novelty recurs during a lesson, we will call it surprise appeal.
II. Surprise
Students consider an unexpected turn of events a "surprise." For unexpected turn of events a "surprise", for example, if a student's investigation of an intriguing project produces information she did not expect, she might start to get hooked by the surprise in the learning experience. The project of growing seeds in elementary science classes often produces squeals of amazement at the changes in the plants. If a student does not experience surprise, the teacher can cue or prompt the appeal with the following cue words and phrases:
"Oh wow, are your plants the same as they were before? Did you think they would grow like this? No?" "you will not believe your eyes," "You will be delighted," or "Just wait till you see this!"
As an added bonus, after a surprise occurs, students might wonder if there will be more surprises. A surprise event might do more than just make its own appeal; it might serve as a cue for "anticipation."
III. Anticipation
Appeals to anticipation prompt curiosity and suspense. The student wonders, "What is going to happen?" In taking apart an old computer, a student wonders, "will it work when I put it back together"? In firing a clay pot, a student might wonder, "How will the glaze turn out?" In singing a concert for an audience, a student might wonder, "What will they think of me?" Suspense is key here. When thelesson is arfully designed students might later experience surprise as a bonus. Some cue words for an appeal to anticipation might be "Today we are going to...," "See if...," "Can you figure out how...," "Be sure to watch for..."
IV. Security
The security appeal in lesson content reassures students that it is safe to engage the subject matter, that the lesson is not "weird" or threatening Some sample cue words for an appeal to security might be "You already know...," "If you have difficulty, I will be here to help you...," or "This is just like what we did..."
When you relate new content to familiar experiences through the use of clear cue words, students see the similarity. Like novelty, security is apt to affect students briefly, at the outset of the lesson, after which other appeals must be present in order to sustain interest and engagement. Security is a powerful motivator for students who are not risk-takers or who have previously experienced failure in the content area.
V. Challenge
A problem that begs to be solved, a question that resists an answer, an obstacle that needs to be overcome, a goal that might or might not be reached...these are intrinsic challenges. Teacher modeling works well here. "Can you do like the experts?" asks the teacher, raising the question in the minds of students and thereby making the question belong to them. "I wonder how that could be done?" It's important to model the response to a challegnge that he or she wants to receive from students. Notice the difference between "extrinsic" and "intrinsic" appeals to challenge. When the teacher says, "I'll bet you can reach the mark." the challenge is extrinsic because the "bet" doesn't exist within the content. On the other hand. "Do you think you can reach the mark?" presents an intrinsic challenge because the task itself contains the goal. Some sample cue words for an appeal to challenge might be "Can you...," Do you think you can...," "You can only use...," or "What makes it behave like that?" "What do you think?"
"Can you" is often misused by inexperienced teachers as a phony directive: "Can you clean the gerbil cage now?" "Can you write your name on your paper?" "Can you see this mushroom head that I am holding up now?" Every student recognizes these "polite" teacher commands, which are commonly heard from novice teachers who unwittingly destroy the effect of genuine challenge appeals.
VI. Completion
Is one part of the lesson used in another part of the same lesson? For example, the content may have two or more distinct segments, and the concept or product of one segment might be required for another. "After you draw your map.... make the lakes blue, for example...and then you may write the name of each lake and each town." Or " A poem is meant to be heard, so memorize your poem so that you can recite it tomorrow in class." Here the teacher is clearly trying to tap into a need of each student to complete the first segment of content for later use. Students must be able to see the different content segments clearly; otherwise the completion appeal will not work.
When students recognize the logical connection between what they are doing on Monday and what they will be doing on Friday, they are more likely to find their tasks purposeful and saisfying.". Sample cue words for a completion appeal might be "you're wondering why you are doing this now? Because later....," After you finish this task, use it as you...,: "Complete this task so you will be ready to..."
The teacher must beware of lessons that appear to have more than one segment but actually do not. For example, "Examine the list and select one to write about" and "Copy the words from the board, look up definitions of each, and use each word correctly in a sentence" are single segment assignments with multiple steps. There is no motivational appeal to move students from step to step.
VII. Application
Can the skills learned in the lesson be used somewhere outside the lesson? Perhaps the skills may be used in the next lesson or in another class or in activities outside school, such as hobbies or sports. The appeal to application assumes that "people do not invest effort in tasks that do not lead to value outcomes even if they know that they can perform the tasks successfully. When students complain that a lesson is "irrelevant." they are saying that they cannot see an application appeal in the content. Some sample cue words for an appeal to application might be "You can use this someday when...," "People often find this useful for...," " As you do this, you are doing what engineers, mechanics, librarians. etc. do..."
Application appeals and completion appeals are exactly the same in that the content is shown to be useful. They differ in that completion promises usefulness in another part of the same lesson, while application promises usefulness outside the lesson.
VIII. Feedback
Feedback allows a student to see immediately the results of engagement with the content. This is the appeal of fast-action video games and of grading one's own paper immediately after taking a test. The appeal is intrinsic rather than extrinsic because the feedback the content itself, not an external element, and the eagerness of the student for that feedback is a pure content motivator.
Notice that the feedback appeal often accompanies and supports the security appeal and responds to the student's efficacy question. "Am I able to do this?" With a reassuring aswer, "yes, you can, and you can keep track of how well you are doing by..." In addition, the feedback appeal frequently accompanies anticipation. When students wonder what is going to happen, the teacher can tell them what sort of feedback to expect. Whenever two or more appeals work simultaneously, their impact is likely to be at least doubly strong. Sample cue words for a feedback appeal might be "You will know immediately whether you were correct...," "If everything goes the way it should, you will be able to hear/see/do..." "Yes, that is exactly what we are looking for..."
IX. Identification
This is the "personal tie" between the content and the self-image of the student. There are four different kinds of identification, each a powerful appeal in its own right.
1. Possession Sample cue words might be "show your (possession to..." or "Deomonstrate your (possession) to the class..."
2. Belonging - Sample cue words might be "Your team...." "You will be a member of ...," "You are all in this together..."
3. Achievement - When teachers structure content so that students not only master certain skills but realize that they have achieved mastery, when teachers post well written essays or display attractive science projects (without gold stars or other extrinsic rewards), or when teahcers help students keep track of their own progress, they are appealing to students' natural inclination to identify with their own achievement. Intrinsic motivation for achievement is always content oriented. If prizes are added to the lesson, the intrinsic motivation is likely to disappear.
Some cue words for achievement might be "See if you can beat your own record...," "When you have finished, you will find you can...," "Teach someone else..."
4. Projection - The appeal here is identification with a role model, with a hero or heroine, with a successful or intriguing adventure. Students might say, "I am just like Nancy Drew in this story" or "I am pretending I am an explorer." When a teacher selects a subject or topic with which students are likely to identify or if a teacher invites students to "pretend," the appeal is clearly to projection. Sample cue words for an appeal to identify with a projeced image might be "Pretend your are...," "If you were Curious George, what would you do? "Here is someone just like you who has..."
When a student identifies with the teacher as a person who is engaged in the subject matter, then the projection appeal "works": students value what teachers value, and a teachers's enthusiasm is "catching." Regardless of age, students respond to enthusiastic teachers.
Competition
"Wining" is a significant appeal to some students who, out of their inner zeal to prove themselves worthy, will find competition in any assigned task. These students are driven to be "better" than others, and they leap at any opportunity to compete. In fact, most students naturally compare themselves to their peers, even in a nongraded exercise. Yet our students' natural inclinations are separate and distinct from the appeals that are implicit in lesson content.
he content and so is not added as an external "activity" or "gimmick." In science, for example, a group might be designated "the predatory wolf pack." The wolves must find and verify as many wolf traits and habits as possible in order to be able to survive solely on a mouse diet in a given ecology. A second group is to be the mouse group and must find and verify as many mouse traits and habits as possible that will enable the mice to survive the predation of the wolves. After 20 minutes of finding and verifying, from any source available, a brief "hunt" will be held in which the traits and habits of predators will be pitted against those of prey. Sample cue words for an appeal to competition might be "Whoever comes in first...," "The way to win is...," "Whoever does the best job..."
In contrast to intrinsic competition, extrinsic competition is an "add on," a gimmick that has no relatinship to the content. For example, spelling bees are irrelevant to spelling, and they make many students sit and watch, inactive and bored.
Activites for this weeks seminar meeting
A. What is you general opinion of the ten appeals listed above? Is it realistic to include them in your lesson plans?
B. Why should teachers make an effort to motivate students using intrinsic rather than extrinsic appeals? What do you think of rewarding students with candy, popcorn, etc.?
C. Be prepared to work in small group designing lessons using one or more of the ten appeals listed above. Bring a lesson that you've taught or going to teach for this part of the seminar.
