Motivating the Unmotivated

When I was teaching high school students, I often heard, “Why do we have to learn this?” This question was easy to handle compared to what teachers are facing today: apathy. We have gone from “Why do I have to learn this?” to “I don’t care if I learn.” 

During meetings on our benchmark assessment data, I hear the same comments from teachers about students who are not making progress. “He refuses to do any work.” “I’ve tried everything, but she doesn’t care.” Motivation is tough, particularly for the screen-addicted teen. For years I relied on Pink’s findings in Drive to help teachers engage students. 

According to Pink, intrinsic motivation comes from three sources: autonomy, competence, and purpose. 
  • Autonomy means that you have some control over the task. Teachers can create autonomy through choice. UDL, specifically representation and expression, provide many ways to allow for choice in materials and end products. 
  • Competence is the belief that you have the ability to be successful at a task. Teachers help students feel confident by assigning work in their zone of proximal development. Moreover, teachers can stress “the power of yet,” or the belief that one can be successful with effort and feedback. 
  • Purpose is related to a task’s perceived value. Students must feel the assignment has value to them personally. Teachers accomplish this by relating content to real-world experiences or interests. 
Recently, I came across the article, “Why do I have to learn this?” The authors expand on the idea of purpose in ways that teachers may find helpful. 
  • Utility value refers to students’ perceptions of the usefulness of the content that they are learning. 
  • Attainment value refers to the extent to which students perceive the topic as personally important. 
  • Intrinsic value refers to how much students like or enjoy learning about the topic. 
  • Cost value refers to the perceived extent to which it is worthwhile to spend time doing academic work on the topic (e.g., studying, doing homework, paying attention in class). The cost value caught my eye. 
The cost value caught my eye. When I meet with students who are failing, I learn pretty quickly that they do not believe the time spent on academics is worthwhile. They do not see the connection between what they are doing in class and how that will impact their adult lives. Lately, I’ve made that connection more concrete. I start with a visual on the impact of failing a grade on their ability to pass the remaining grades. Once we have established that they could fail out of high school, I show them the annual salary of a drop out. Then I share infographics on how living in poverty significantly increases as a high school drop out. My new approach seems to be working. Two relatively challenging students are starting to turn it around. One of them said to me, “I can’t buy basic necessities on the salary of a drop out.” 

But what can teachers do? 
  1. Make an explicit and clear connection between the work students are doing in class and the upcoming assessment, the next grade level, a career, personal interests, or all of the above. The connection should be visual and concrete. 
  2. Make completing classwork and homework worthwhile by holding students responsible for the learning. For example, students will have to lead a small group discussion, teach the entire class, or take on a role in an activity, like the Six Thinking Hats.
  3. Consider putting a time limit on some assignments. Ask students to stop working after 30 minutes. Frustrated students will not see a task as worthwhile and will likely learn the content/skills incorrectly. 
  4.  Provide feedback that focuses primarily on process and effort so that students see that the time spent is valuable. 
  5. Allow students to retake assessments if they have shown sufficient effort. 
  6. Encourage reflection. At the beginning of the semester or quarter, ask students to think about their perceived effort and its impact on their progress. Then have them identify a way to increase their effort and how you can help them. 

Resources: 
Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, Daniel Pink 
Why Do I Have to Learn This, Anderman, E.M., Sheng, Y., and Cha, W

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