Friday, October 16, 2009

Motivation and Learning



Dan Pink, in a recent TED presentation, provides some interesting insight into motivation. Give it a look. Here are a couple of related posts to this topic.

Bill Farren on Motivation

The argument over Grading
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1 comment:

maggie said...

Well to be honest I usually dont sit down and finish many of these posts but I am so glad I read "The Argument over Grading".
I would love if we did not grade in the traditional manner. Although my subject matter lends to this practice. My students seem to be less motivated by grades and more by the idea of creating something better each time. I only see discouragement when they do get their letter grade. Back to the article I strongly agree with the following statements:
"6. Grades waste a lot of time that could be spent on learning. Add up all the hours that teachers spend fussing with their grade books. Then factor in all the (mostly unpleasant) conversations they have with students and their parents about grades. It’s tempting to just roll our eyes when confronted with whining or wheedling, but the real problem rests with the practice of grading itself.

7. Grades encourage cheating. Again, we can continue to blame and punish all the students who cheat -- or we can look for the structural reasons this keeps happening. Researchers have found that the more students are led to focus on getting good grades, the more likely they are to cheat, even if they themselves regard cheating as wrong (Anderman et al., 1998; Milton et al., 1986; also see "Who's Cheating Whom?"). The students can visual compare their beginning project to their end projects. They also compare their work to their classmates which drives them to do better on the next project."
So, if this was a way of "starting the conversation" I'm in!
I was so happy to read the conclusion about the colleges accepting many students from these types of systems.

October 18, 2009 at 5:00 PM

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