Teaching Methods

Incorporating the idea of affordance in a lesson can foster self motivated learning, affordance is the use or purpose that a thing can have, that people notice as a part of the way they see it or experience it. "...variety, diversity, challenge, control, and meaningfulness, as well as the procedural complexity and social organization of the task..."(Blumenfeld, 1992); are all attributes of content material that students will find engaging and meaningful. 

Will this enrich a students life? Will there be any satisfaction after the content is learned? and is there a general aesthetic appreciation one will have at the end of the content? Are all examples of questions educators must keep in mind when they are wanting to foster positive motivational patterns.

In younger students more instruction is needed to help guide and direct their concentration. "Instruction in prewriting and pre-reading strategies has consistently shown positive benefits for elementary school students" (Pressley, Johnson, Symons, McGoldrich, & Kurita, 1989). The monitoring a educator must do with difference in age groups to help foster the beginnings of SRL is very important. As students get older and start implementing strategies in their learning, they must start to find significance in the content. "Students need to know what actions lead to which outcomes and why uit is important to perform and monitor those actions" (Paris and Paris, 2001).