Intrinsic Motivation

1. Intrinsic Motivation • Definition: inherent desire to engage one’s interests and to exercise and develop one’s capacities • Emerges from needs of autonomy, competence and relatedness • Produces number of educational benefit • Initiative • Persistence • Creativity • Conceptual understanding of what they are learning • Positive well-being

2. Extrinsic Reward • Definition: arises from outside incentives and consequences; extrinsic motivation is an environmentally created reason to initiate or persist in an action • Ex: If you do X, you get Y • Can be beneficial if used properly • Hidden Cost of Reward • Undermines intrinsic motivation • Distraction of learning material • Interferes with autonomous self-regulation

3. At your table… Discuss how your past teachers used extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. Did you think it worked well? How would you implement it in your classroom?

4. Autonomy • Definition: Need to experience self-direction in the initiation and regulation of one’s behavior • i.e. ability to choose • Controlling environment vs. autonomy-supportive environment • Supportive: teacher works to identify student’s interests, preferences, and desires • Controlling: controls students behavior and conforms to teacher’s agenda

5. Why support autonomy? • Students with autonomy supportive teachers show • greater intrinsic motivation • mastery motivation • positive emotion • creativity • conceptual understanding • prosocial behavior • classroom engagement • academic performance • persistence in school

6. At your table… Discuss: Did your past teachers adhere to your autonomy? How are you going to cultivate your students autonomous drive? In a classroom of 25, how do you let every student do what they want to do ?

7. Video • Youtube: • Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us