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Fostering Intrinsic Motivation in Children and Students


Hey everyone!  I am doing an extra blog post this week about how to foster motivation in children (or anyone really)!  There is so much research out there and a lot of it is very scientific and hard to understand.  However, I found this link with the first three chapters from, Understanding How Young Children Learn by Wendy L. Ostroff.  If you have any interest in this subject at all, it is a bit of a lengthy read but I promise that it will benefit you:

http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/112003/chapters/Understanding-Children's-Motivation.aspx


 Ostroff (2012) states, “mo·ti·va·tion is the driving desire behind all action and is the precursor and cornerstone to learning. It is no exaggeration to say that children have boundless energy for living and learning. From an evolutionary perspective, behaviors that are important for survival (like eating or reproducing) must be pleasurable to do in and of themselves. Young children survive by exploring their world via manipulation, locomotion, language, and social interaction. But they also love doing these things. The immediate satisfaction of "being good at" something also has adaptive significance for cognitive growth…. Motivation is a readiness to learn.”

She gives many one liner tips and follows with a brief explanation of what it looks like.  Some of these Ostroff likens to teaching in the classroom but you can just relate the “student” as your child (or yourself for that matter).

► Newness, change, and excitement motivate learning.

► Habituation and novelty preference reflect children's ability to encode quickly and correspond to their attention, perception, and cognition.

► The brain is highly responsive to novelty.

► Exploration sets up opportunities for learning.

► Create a secure, predictable structure, with clear expectations and boundaries, from which to divert.

► Locate the drama in the content of the lesson.

► Stimulate, engage, and delight not only your students but also yourself.

► Surprise the students with your delivery!

► Confidence helps children try and practice new things.

► Overconfidence has positive effects on competence and cognitive gains.

► Visualizing success increases the likelihood of success.

► To the brain, thinking about doing something is not much different from actually doing it.

► Provide careful, constructive feedback that encourages students' strengths as well as areas in need 
of improvement.

►Reward student attempts and intellectual risk taking over "playing it safe" to get correct answers or high marks

► Let students work and be evaluated in pairs or teams so they have an opportunity to be part of something bigger and to be less self-conscious.

► Create lesson plans that highlight multimodal strengths, giving each student a chance to shine in some way marks.

► Play is children's prime motivator.

► Play enhances self-control and experimentation.

► Play enhances children's learning in school much more effectively than formal academic preparation.

► Taking away recess and free play harms children's cognitive development.

► Play promotes brain development.

► Encourage students to generate their own strategies for solving problems.

► Give students choices in both the process and content of learning.

► Create a learning community in the classroom.

► Use dialogue as much as possible.

► Work within the child's zone of proximal development.

► Focus curricula on relevance to students and on applicability to their lives outside school.

Seriously, her explanations for all of these points are absolutely incredible.  If you want to be the best parent, you can (or teacher—in my case this applies to teaching my dance students) I HIGHLY recommend that you take some time to read this article.

Also along this same subject, in an article entitled “Fostering Intrinsic Motivation in Children: A Humanistic Counseling Process” By: Randolph H. Watts Jr, Craig S. Cashwell and Wendi K Schweiger (2004) they talk about how to enliven intrinsic motivation within children.  This is another incredible article I suggest reading:

https://libres.uncg.edu/ir/uncg/f/C_Cashwell_Fostering_2004.pdf

They suggest 4 constructs that are critical to the development of intrinsic motivation, ”These constructs are self-determination, self-perceived competence, relatedness, and perceived salience. Self-determination involves a basic, innate propensity that leads people to engage in interesting behaviors out of choice and their own needs rather than obligation or coercion (Deci & Ryan, 1985). Competence is defined as the need to be effective (Deci & Ryan, 1985). Relatedness is the need for warmth from and involvement with others (Deci & Chadler, 1986). Finally, perceived salience is the extent to which the child understands the importance of behaviors that are being externally rewarded and the effect this understanding has on motivation (Deci et al., 1999b)." (Cashwell, Watts, Schewiger, 2004).

They offer multiple suggestions on how this would look like in your home:

1.      Based on the concept of self-determination, allow a child to make as many decisions as possible for herself or himself.

2.       To influence a child's self-perceived competence, it is important to use verbal praise with great intentionality.

There is so much great information available to help our children become intrinsically motivated and learn for the sake of learning rather than for the sake of a grade or for obeying a teacher. Let me know in the comments below what has worked for you in your home and teaching endeavors.  Have a great 4th of July!!!!

 References:
Katz, I., Assor, A., & Kanat-Maymon, Y. (2004). A projective assessment of autonomous motivation in children: Correlational and experimental evidence. Motivation & Emotion, 32(2), 109–119. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-008-9086-0

Ostroff, W. L. (2012). Chapter 1. Understanding Childrens Motivation. Retrieved from http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/112003/chapters/Understanding-Childrens-Motivation.aspx

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