Teaching Methods and the Cause

The Cause:

• Students with a bad connection to school can look for ways to defy teachers and laugh at motivation

• Teachers can kill intrinsic motivation by offering rewards, and this makes students feel embarrassed

• For example, if a student is interested in reading, after being offered a reward for reading the most books that month, they can feel bad or coddled after being rewarded for something they already had a strong care for

• If a student is interested in something, they will connect to the material they are learning in a school setting

  • This can be good and bad, for attention can be focused or divided

Teaching Methods to counteract this:

• Discover the individual and universal (in terms of a class of students) influences that can instill a motivation to learn

• Utilize rewards for the correct types of achievement in the classroom; i.e. universal rewards for classroom goals

  • Rewards themselves do not negatively impact motivation, but the contingency and instructions of the related task

  • Research determined that the right mix of rewards and tasks is crucial to ensuring intrinsic motivation is not ruined

• Find a balance between student-led learning and guided lessons, where students feel satisfied with the separation of work they have chosen and work that has been chosen for them

  • For example,  the students can decide on the topic of a presidential research project in U.S. History but all students must do an essay on the Bill of Rights

Ms. Wormwood displays a controlling teaching style that:

• Undermines Calvin's desire to learn autonomously

  • Shutting his creativity down outright instills a disdain for the classroom and for her authority; she could instead aim his creativity into the betterment of his education and link his creativity with his learning

• Pressures Calvin to work like the other students

• Denies Calvin's creativity

Ms. Wormwood Example

• Once, Ms. Wormwood asked for Calvin's attention since he was distracted with dinosaurs, and instead of asking about what was on his mind, she resorted to yelling at him. 

• This will also make her an autonomy-supportive educator, allowing Calvin's imagination to be his motivation for the class. Letting Calvin say what he wants to say as well as looking for a new angle to get Calvin's attention should be Ms. Wormwood's responsibility. 

Ms. Wormwood should try:

• Looking at Calvin through a new lens, and not a "problem student"

• Integrating what she knows gets Calvin's attention, into lessons and topics on an individual basis

• Moving to different routes, than going straight to send him to the principal's office

• Show Calvin how to apply the knowledge he has on nature, history, and storytelling

• For example, next time Calvin brings his love of nature in class, Ms. Wormwood should attempt to hold Calvin's attention by using nature as a topic to talk about the subject Calvin hates