Competency 8: Support students' love of learning

I find my personal motivation for learning touches at all three theories (Expectancy-Value-Cost, ARCS, and self-determination) but, out of all of them, I resonate most with the ARCS model of instructional design.

The ARCS model stands for the four important aspects teachers need to take into consideration when attempting to motivate students in their learning: attention, relevance, confidence, and satisfaction (Teachings in Education, 2019). I found that in order to be motivated to learn, the subject needed to be something that grabbed my attention, was relenvent to me in some way, and the learning process itself had to be satisfying. Personally, confidence wasn't always a priority out of all four aspects of the ARCS model but I always found it beneficial when it came to wanting to be motivated in continuing to learn the subject I was interested in. Confidence was a factor I never knew was important until I had teachers who negatively impacted me by either making me wonder why in the world I had to do the work if it wasn't interesting nor was I doing well, or by simply taking all the joy out of learning something I was highly interested in.

Throughout my practicum, I found I naturally gravitated to the ARCS model. I often thought about how I teach my students this topic and ensure they stay motivated throughout. They were already excited and motivated to learn about plants as they hadn't done so yet, so motivating them at the beginning was easy to do. However, my challenge lay in keeping their motivation. In the end, I made sure to always include two of three things: a hook of sorts to start off the lesson, some type of game that had students moving or thinking, and a way for students to express themselves within certain parameters already laid out for them. These came in the form of the following: 

1. The hook tended to be a read-aloud or video that was humour in nature of had some type of "wow" factor, such as interesting images. The important part was to ensure they were long enough to satisfy the student but short enough that it didn't lose their interest and attention.

2. The games usually had some type of cards to them. In one case, they have to match their pollinator/plant card with its corresponding pair while working in groups. In another instance, they had to use cards the cards they had and determine which were things a plant needed to survive and which were not.

3. Lastly, any written component I had allowed for their own imagination and creativity to flow as I did not restrict them in that aspect. Each time they were given parameters on what they had to do, such as writing about what type of flowers their pollinator was attracted to, or what type of biome they would be in and why, but beyond that students were able to write about whatever they wanted to. I found this motivated them in writing as they had a choice on what they wanted to write about.

Throughout my entire practicum, however, I believe that what really motivated them was how I introduced my LES in the first place: I brought one of my own plants from home that was growing in water in a clear jar to show the students. It allowed them to see up close and in personal what every aspect of a plant looks like, even the roots, which they usually don't get to see. This sparked their motivation even more as they used the visual knowledge they gained to identify and write about the peas and beans they were later growing in plastic bags in the windows.