Fueling Motivation with Purpose and Passion

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We all like to see students motivated and inspired to learn. We've all worked with students when they truly seem to be in the 'zone', craving to increasing their knowledge and skills. They are a pleasure to work with when they're taking initiative, asking great questions and diving deeper into their learning. Unfortunately, the reality is students aren't always in the 'zone' and we find ourselves asking what we need to do to motivate our students. Undoubtedly we play a significant role in student motivation, but the question is...what role? As adults, is it our responsibility to motivate and inspire our students? Or, is it our responsibility to help students develop their own motivation and inspiration?

On the surface, these may sound like subtle differences in language but when you think about this distinction a little more, you start to realize that they speak to different philosophies. The educator who believes it is his/her responsibility to motivate students often falls back on 'carrots and sticks' in an attempt to motivate. (S)he views motivation as something that is done to kids. Dangling the reward of marks and threatening to punish with late marks and zeros are two of the more common strategies. Both strategies focus on extrinsic motivators, where the teacher assumes the role of the motivator who initiates the process of motivating a student who is passively waiting to be motivated.  

And then there are others who believe in the power of intrinsic motivation and help their students fuel their own motivation.  They believe that enduring motivation comes from within oneself. These teachers lead students to explore answers to real-life questions, create solutions to authentic problems in the world and help students uncover areas of interest.  They want students to see purpose and develop passion towards their learning. They create the conditions where student learning is personalized, meaningful and seamlessly connected to their experiences outside of school. They want students to drive their learning, own their learning and be inspired to make a difference.

The interviews below feature students sharing their thoughts on learning opportunities fuelled by purpose and passion. The first student discusses how her desire to help others led her to voluntarily initiate a shoe drive through Soles 4 Soles.

These students describe how their participation in Composition and Technology has enabled them to further explore their passion for music.

One point that's made clear by these three students is that 'marks' and 'grades' are not contributing to their motivation. They are clearly inspired by purpose and motivated by passion!

Surviving or Thriving?

Consider the profile of a student who is 'surviving' school.

He/she...

• appears disinterested, disengaged and bored in class. 
• seems lazy and unmotivated     
• requires the push from the teacher in order to get going on anything in class. 
• appears to be going through the motions and just 'doing school', seemingly without purpose.         
• is content with simply 'passing' each course.

Why are some of our students just 'surviving'?

Unlike life outside of school, much of the learning in schools (high schools in particular) is organized in a manner that lends itself to learning in silos. Students attend separate classes for Math, Science, Social Studies, English, etc. Students are asked to learn course-specific concepts and skills independent of what they are being asked to learn in other courses. Of course, there are interdisciplinary connections between the different courses but we too often force students to create the connections on their own. As a teacher it is easy to focus on the course curriculum at the expense of pointing out to students how their learning connects across disciplines. Because we often fail to help students see how their learning fits into a bigger picture, students can feel as though they are being asked to learn decontextualized nuggets of information. And since the lives they live demand the application of interconnected skills and knowledge from various disciplines, they struggle to see the relevance of what they are learning at school.

Compare this to the profile of a student who is 'thriving' at school.

He/she...

• is highly motivated and passionate about learning new things and ask questions beyond the scope of the class.
• regularly talks about what is happening at school.
• takes initiative and explores new ideas. 

• has high expectations and works hard to achieve his/her goals.
• sees how his/her learning will lead to future plans

What can lead to more of our students 'thriving'?

Daniel Pink (@danielpink), author of Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us argues that three factors (autonomy, mastery & purpose) contribute to enduring motivation. The following are some quotes from one of his recent webinars.

• Autonomy: "the technology for engagement is self-direction"
• Mastery: "the single biggest motivator is when people are making progress in meaningful work"
• Purpose: "how & why are they doing the work?"

I believe we need to create more opportunities for 'big-picture' learning, where students explore big, important questions from a range of angles. Through self-driven inquiries, challenges and initiatives students should engage in authentic interdisciplinary learning opportunities that they are passionate about and can see are relevant to their present and future lives.

Consider how much different school might look and feel if we allowed greater opportunity for students to have input into and self-direct their own learning. What if, under the guidance of a teacher, students could...

• propose problems and challenges they wished to solve?
• propose initiatives they wished to accomplish in their school and community?
• share their learning and progress towards self-directed inquiries and initiatives with the school, community and the world using a variety of technologies?

An example of what this might look like is the Pathways program at Mount Abraham Union Middle/High School where students, through a personalized program, develop their own curriculum and become invested in inquiry.

My guess is that if we allow students greater opportunity to personalize their learning, they will be more motivated to learn and experience more fulfillment from their learning. I would hope this would contribute to fewer of our students surviving and greater number of them thriving!

Edcamp Delta: A Personalized Learning Experience

Recently in British Columbia, much is being said about the need for personalization. The Ministry of Education's new BC Education Plan emphasizes the importance of personalized learning.

We must not confuse personalization with individualization and differentiation.

"Personalized learning is not individualized learning, in which students share the same learning goals but progress through the curriculum at their own pace. Nor is it differentiated instruction, in which students also share learning goals but receive instruction that is tailored to their learning needs.

Personalized learning is an instructional approach that encompasses both differentiation and individualization, but is also flexible in content or theme to match the specific interests and prior experiences of learners."

Personalized learning really takes into consideration that long tail of interest, of prior motivation, of languages. It leverages all the different things that people have in their repertoire to add value to their learning. In any personalized learning model, the student - not the teacher - is the central figure."  Karen Cator

But what does personalized learning actually look like? feel like?

Well, on Saturday January 14th I participated in a personalized learning experience at Edcamp Delta.

For those of you less familiar with how an edcamp works, let me briefly explain.

• There is no keynote speaker and no set topics.
• Participants propose discussion topics leading up to and in person on the morning of the event.

• Participants vote for topics that interest them and based on the popularity of the respective topics, the organizers arrange the discussion topics within a grid and create a schedule for the day.

• Participants choose to participate in sessions they are most interested in.
• One or more participants step forward to initiate the conversations in each session. 
• Participants share ideas, perspectives and experiences with each other. They respond to each other's questions and queries.

So, what key features of an edcamp contribute to such a personalized (not just individualized or differentiated) learning experience?

• Participants arrive with different goals for the day. Some wish to network, others want to share ideas about specific topics and some want to ask questions.
• The content is flexible and participants choose discussion topics based on their specific interests and prior experiences.
• Each participant contributes and adds value to the other participants' learning.
• Face-to-face and backchannel conversations take place within each session but participants may choose to extend their conversations throughout the day.
• There is an absence of hierarchy. There is no 'teacher', no 'expert' and no passive attendees trying to soak up information being delivered by the 'guru' in the room. All participants are learners, helping one another.

What transpires from this is truly remarkable. Each participant is deeply engaged and exudes a passion for learning. Being surrounded by such energy and enthusiasm is both motivating and inspirational. And one is guaranteed to walk away from an edcamp event curious about a new topic and wanting to continue a conversation started earlier in the day.

So, in British Columbia as we look to reshape education in a way that supports personalized learning, maybe we should be considering the success of recent Edcamps and borrow key aspects from the 'unconference' model of learning.

Imagine how the notion of school might change if learners had the choice to investigate self-directed inquiry topics based on their curiosity and interests?
Imagine if learners shared questions and problems with their local and global network and challenged each other to think critically and be creative problem-solvers.
Imagine if learning was made more social, with more emphasis on learning together, where learners communicated, cooperated and collaborated in an effort to build shared knowledge and understanding?

Undoubtedly, this would lead to more questions about our current model of 'schooling'.

Organizationally, how might this look in a class? in a school?

How might this impact curriculum? Would this lead curriculum to emphasize skills more than knowledge?

How would this alter the traditional role of the 'teacher' and 'student'?

I recognize these are not easy questions to answer, but neither is the challenge of envisioning a personalized learning system for all students in BC!