Winter Workshop 3: Motivating Students

In this week’s workshop we explored student motivation. Our main goals for the workshop included discovering what motivates students, learning how different factors affect and are affected by motivation, and exploring techniques to increase motivation. We began with a discussion of why motivation is important for student learning and then brainstormed what motivates students. To better understand what factors impact student motivation, we explored a model compiled by Ambrose et al. (“How learning works: Seven research-based principles for smart teaching”). In this model, the goal values, student expectation for success, and learning environment all affect motivation levels, which in turn impact a student’s behavior and ultimate achievement of a learning goal (see diagram). In the culminating section of the workshop, participants generated lists of techniques for establishing values, encouraging expectancies (expectations for success) and building positive classroom environments. In these lists, several participants said that connecting activities and assignments to "real world" concerns and issues could be motivating for students. Others said that by giving students positive feedback, and setting clear expectations for their work, they could help foster a positive attitude toward the class. 

Student motivation model, modified from Ambrose et al. (2010)

While formulating this workshop, we first tried to generate our own list about what might motivate students, which included grades, job prospects, interest in the subject matter, etc. However, as we got deeper into the research surrounding student motivation, we started noticing that there are so many (sometimes conflicting) factors that influence student motivation, some of which instructors can control, and some of which they can’t. We hoped we emphasized the specific things that instructors could control, like cultivating a collaborative classroom environment and setting clear expectations, but in future iterations of this workshop, we might try to get even more specific about what strategies instructors can use to motivate students in the classroom. For now, though, we think this group of workshop participants came up with a thorough, helpful list!