Video compiling ideas about motivation

Here is the video I started my intrinsic motivation presentation with. 

Prime and composite numbers

The Transformation of a math teacher from one who “drilled and killed” to one who engages

Many teachers have commented that I talk a lot about theory but not enough about practicality.  I decided I will start focusing on how I changed my teaching style, through specific lessons, to allow for true engagement with my students.

Prime and composite numbers: The "old" way:
1) I would write the following definitions on the board:

Prime number – a number which has only two factors, 1 and itself

Composite number – a number which has more than 2 factors

2) I would then ask students to classify the following numbers as prime or composite 2, 4, 13….

3) I would then assign questions out of the textbook.

This is how I used to teach the difference between prime and composite.  Students found zero meaning and therefore never reached true engagement during this exercise.  Also, I had to assume that the students understood what a factor was, which usually took more time to redefine that term.   In all my years of teaching and studying mathematics I have never actually used the definitions of prime and composite, but instead required to apply what prime and composite numbers are.  If I, the master of the classroom, have never used the definition, why am I requiring my students to learn it?

This year I scrapped the definition of these two words and taught application and use; here is how:

I gave my students the following problem:

You are planning a wedding and you and your spouse are very particular about seating arrangements.  You can arrange the tables in any way as long as there is the same amount of people at each table.  You have a total of 100 people coming to your wedding, how can you arrange the tables?

(Usually I would start with a small number and increase the difficulty, but this year I have all my students sitting in groups where collaboration is promoted and therefore started with a larger number.)

My students started talking, “25 tables of 4 each, or 4 tables of 25 each, …..”, all groups even generated “1 group of 100 and 100 groups of 1”.  We then discussed reasonable sitting and why 1 group of 100 is unpractical (This discussion needs to occur to fully understand the application of prime and composite).  I then added the following sentence:

Your spouse forgot to invite her favourite uncle, now bringing the total 101.  Describe any problems and solutions.

At first students were confused.  They couldn’t find a number for which 101 could be broken up into.  After some thought, groups were starting to write “101 groups of 1 or 1 group of 101”.  Groups were commenting “I wouldn’t have 101 people; we would need to invite 3 more people so the total is 104 and have 13 tables of 8 each”.  I smiled!

Students understood the difference between these weird numbers that could not be broken up and the other ones where actual application could be used.  I concluded the lesson with the formal terms of prime and composite.

Application should be the focus of math class not formal definitions.  Math has beauty all throughout it, and the more we show off this beauty the more students will become engaged to learn math.

More on intrinsic motivation before extrinsic

An argument to my blog about motivation is “Would you work if you weren’t paid?”  Society needs to understand that extrinsic motivation will only induce and encourage people to a certain point, while intrinsic motivation will provoke and inspire behaviour beyond that point.

To illustrate this let’s take two teachers, who both work in middle class Red Deer:

Ivan – a teacher who is motivated by true intrinsic motivation.  Ivan loves to teach solely to inspire young minds.

Edward – a teacher who is motivated by only extrinsic motivation.  Edward loves to teach for the 2 months off at summer, the pay check, and the honour of calling himself a teacher.

Scenario 1: They are paid $100 000 a year for teaching; a pay which allows them to both live comfortably.  Their administration then offers a 10% (or $10 000) increase in pay if they were to take on extra teaching duties.  Due to their motivations Ivan would say “Yes”, while Edward would decline.

Ivan is agreeing as he is seeing an opportunity to stimulate more young minds.  Edward declines since he does not need the increase in pay to sustain his lifestyle.

Scenario 2: They are paid $30 000 a year; a pay which will NOT allow them to both live comfortably.  Their administration offers the same deal, 10% (or $3 000) increase to take on extra teaching duties.  This time, however, they both accept the deal.

Even though the increase is less this time than in scenario 1, Edward needs the increase to maintain and continue living his lifestyle. 

Teachers need to understand that extrinsic rewards, or carrots, only motivate students to a point.  For some, this point is a 50%, and others it may be a 90%, but there is a mark XX% for every child.  Once a student achieves his/her XX%, the learning curve will drop drastically.  To further illustrate this, an actual comment from a student:

“My parents require me to be on the honour roll, which is to have an average of 80% or higher.  Since my mark in this class is an 85%, I can stop trying”

This is occurring more often than we realize!  When we start creating classrooms based on learning, and not marks, the paradigm shift will be amazing.  Students will start holding themselves accountable for their learning, and there will no longer be an XX% for which students will maximize their performance at.  We need to start answering the question of “Is this for marks?” with “NO! It is for learning!”

Autonomy, mastery and purpose first, carrots and sticks second

“People are not as endlessly manipulable and predictable as you would think”  Most people believe that the more you reward a certain behaviour you will get more of it, while by creating a set of punishments will make you get less of certain behaviour.  This is actually not true!

A study was done with MIT, University of Chicago and Carnegie Mellon, on a large group of people.  The people were given various different tasks from memorizing strings of numbers to physical tasks as shooting a basketball.  Three different sets of monetary rewards were given. 

Level 1 – People who performed pretty well were given a small monetary award.

Level 2 – People who performed medium well were given a medium monetary award.

Level 3 – People who performed at the top were given a large monetary award. (Top prize of $50)

This is truly the system for people who work for commissions, or other monetary incentive systems. 

What was found out?

For the skills that used only mechanical skills, what most would expect was seen, the larger the pay the better the performance.  However, with skills that required even the basic cognitive ability, the larger the pay the WORSE the performance. 

Some could argue that $50 is not enough incentive for a MIT student to perform their best on a task.  To defeat this argument the group then went to Madurai India (Rural India), where the top prize IS actually a significant amount of money.  The prizes now became:

Level 1 – 2 weeks salary

Level 2 – 1 month salary

Level 3 – 2 month salary

Again what was witnessed was, “Higher incentives lead to worse performance”.

Moral of the story:

For simple incentive tasks, rewards work great, but for more complicated and in depth tasks, rewards actually demoralize the ability to complete the task.   If you want a student to have the smallest basis of understanding for a concept, then rewards (or carrots) will work wonders.  When you ask the student to be creative, think critically, or show some cognitive understanding you will not need marks.

This then asks the questions what are the factors for motivation, which the video explains as:

1) Autonomy: students want to be self-directed, and to have control over their own learning.  If you only want compliance from students, then you cannot allow them to be self-directed.  However, self-direction will allow for true engagement to flourish in a classroom.

Proof: A software company called Atlassian, out of Australia, does something very unique.  Once, every quarter, they allow their employees to work on whatever they, with whomever they want, and however they want.  They are provided with beer, cake, etc. so as to create a fun environment.  The only catch: whatever you create, fix, or solve, you must show your results.  The company has seen, just in these 24 hours alone, a large array of fixes for existing software, new software, and so on.  “Pure un-diluted autonomy truly works!”

2) Mastery and purpose: Students truly want to get better at tasks they are required to complete.  No one enjoys not knowing, or not being good, at something. 

Proof: “People will do things for free, spend time doing it for the fun of it and never expect any reward from it” Most people will shake their head at this statement.  If you are one of those people, look at the site “Wikipedia”.  Here is a site that is created solely on people doing research, spending time reading, and then providing their knowledge FOR FREE.  Look at how many educational blogs there are; people sharing their ideas, thoughts and answers with the world, for no gain at all.  What drives them? “Mastery and contribution”.

Educators need to start realizing we are teaching kids and that “carrots” and “sticks” are no longer driving motivation.  Instead, we need to give students autonomy, mastery and purpose.

Learning first, ranking second.

I have addressed how teachers and students can look past grades, marks and other extrinsic motivators, however there is another group that needs to get on board and they are parents.   Some of my friends, who teach the younger grades and are trying to abolish grades and homework, have informed me there is a pushback from parents. 

First, there is not one shred of evidence that supports the idea of homework in elementary grades.  Parents need to be aware of this fact.  After watching the movie “Race to Nowhere”, and reading many research papers, it has become very evident that elementary kids should not have homework stress outside of school.   Unfortunately, homework is not the only thing adding stress; grades create stress as well.

The truth is that for most students, the above picture is actually their life outside of school.  Your high achievers are becoming stressed to maintain their high grades, while your low achievers are stressed in keeping their head above water.

How do we cut down this stress?  Parents need to stop asking the following questions:

“What did you get on your test?”

“What is your mark in the class?”

“Do you have any homework?”

“When is your next report card?”

The questions should be replaced with:

“What did you learn today?”

“Is there anything you are not understanding in class?”

“Did you have fun today?”

"Is there anything else you would like to learn about what you learnt today?

 Society needs to start focusing more on the learning occurring and less on the ranking of students.  In reality, what do marks really do? RANK students!  Do parents send their children to school, to be ranked or to learn?  I hope the latter is the answer, and if so why are the questions about school focusing on the ranking and not learning?

Intrinsic motivation first, extrinsic second (or even never)

When students are learning due to intrinsic motivation over extrinsic motivation, the learning is far more substantial.   Sadly, most classes are providing students with extrinsic motivators.

Intrinsic motivation is when a student is motivated by internal factors.  Students who are demonstrating intrinsic motivation will be driven to do things “just for the fun of it”, or because they truly believe it is worthwhile to do.

Extrinsic motivation is when a student is motivated by external factors.  Students who are demonstrating this type will be driven to do things because of rewards in a class, such as grades. 

When a student is completing a task because of intrinsic motivation, he/she does not need an explanation to complete it, due to the simple fact that he/she already understands the meaning behind it.  Extrinsic motivation forces the students to complete the task for a reward, and most students will become more interested in the reward than the actual task itself. 

Which is better? Here is some research:

Lepper, Greene and Nisbett (1973) asked two groups of children to do some drawings. One group was promised a 'good player medal' for their work and the other was promised nothing. On a return visit, the groups were given paper and crayons and what they did was observed. The group who had been given the medal for drawing previously spent significantly less this time drawing as compared with the no-reward group.

Most classes are offering external motivators such as rewards (I would even call this bribery) or even threats.  Extrinsic is the “easy way out” to trick a student into learning.  When a class is run this way, the moment you stop giving the reward the learning also stops.   Again some research:

Greene, Sternberg and Lepper (1976) played mathematical games with schoolchildren, which the children seemed to enjoy. After a while, they started giving rewards for success. When they took away the rewards, the children quickly gave up playing the games. 

The explanation was that the children had decided that they were playing for the reward, not for the fun.

Many times I have heard, “If I don’t mark it, they won’t do it!”  My reply; “If they won’t do it, maybe it is not worthwhile for them to do it”.  In education, we need to start relying on true intrinsic motivators and stop providing students with extrinsic motivation.