Many thanks to Dr. Johnson and Dr. Diley Hernandez for the amazing presentations on motivation and persistence. This is an area I have the most difficulty, trying to motivate the students and once they become motivated to stay motivated throughout the semester.
When the speakers talked about misconceptions, it felt like they were talking directly to me and made me realize that I needed to change my approach to motivating the students. As they mentioned, all rewards are not good, and some may even be harmful, especially for the ones who are already motivated. In order to help more students attain mastery goals and increase performance , I will employ more group activities, especially in the lecture sections (since lower performance is associated with the lecture section versus the lab sections which have group activities and higher performance).
To get students more motivated, I will try to reach out to students (who did very well in my class, wrote them a letter, and wound up transferring to Columbia University, NYU, SUNYs, CCNY, Hunter, Brooklyn, etc., some of them to pursue a career in the medical field) to visit and give a brief talk to the current students.
One thought on “Topic 2: My reflection on motivation and persistence”
One of the biggest misconceptions I have held surrounds the belief that all students can and will be motivated in similar ways. Though seemingly, obvious, this was one of the most impactful takeaways from this topic, specific to the action of infusing the lecture or assignments with various motivating elements. – I believe this also connects back to our earlier conversations about how we may encourage students to explore their strengths and what they may be motivated by.
Here, to address this misconception, I plan on implementing strategic assignments at the start of the semester (1) to help students understand the role that motivation plays in their learning, and (2) to help me identify the types of motivation styles within the classroom. Though I am still working through it, I would like these assignments to help students see themselves in the content, and the role they can play in making the changes they may want to see in the industry. Here, I really liked the idea of creating a space for students to imagine their world/experience/career without boundaries.