Last week we looked at factors that influence students’ motivation to learn. This week we’ll focus on two of those – motivation is increased when students perceive personal value in a learning goal and when they perceive a reasonable likelihood of being successful in achieving the goal. Much of this is applicable in the classroom context, but some suggestions may be even more appropriate to utilize in interactions with students that take place outside the classroom.
Strategies to Establish Value
A significant step toward increasing a student’s perception of the value of a learning goal is to connect material to the student’s interests. Allowing flexibility when possible for students to choose topics or projects helps them to see and feel (to connect with) the personal value in an assignment. Another essential piece is to help show the student how this current goal is connected to their larger academic and professional goals. What is the student’s major? What do they want to do after school in their professional lives? Even if they don’t know, how do the skills they will develop through an assignment or course connect more broadly to transferable professional skills? Value in the small pieces can be increased when students see how they fit into their bigger vision.
This relates to another strategy to increase perception of value: provide authentic, real-world tasks when possible. This helps to connect abstract theory to something more tangible. When students produce work to share with others, this is a move in this direction. Depending on the class, this could mean assignments or projects that involve writing that will be published, posters that will be presented, pieces that will be performed, designed-objects that will be used by others, etc.
Finally, remember that an important way to establish value is to show students your own enthusiasm for the field of study you’re in and to explain what you value about it and why.
Strategies to Build Positive Expectancies
Students come to us carrying the experiences of their past. Therefore, whether they feel they will be successful on an assignment or in our class, is the result of how they have performed in school throughout their education. For some the past has provided confidence in their own abilities, and for others, it has created doubt. What can we do now to help increase students’ expectation of success?
One way to help is to gauge what your students already know about something or can already do, and then see how this compares to your learning objectives for the class. Do you need to provide more of a foundation than you expected? Are you setting reasonable levels of challenge for them? If students are not where they need to be, how will you scaffold them in order to help them get there? Students will be motivated by achievable challenges – challenges that require effort, but are attainable. Providing the right level of challenge at the right time is key as well. Starting off a course with smaller, low-stakes assignments can allow early opportunities for success, which can go a long way in building confidence and expectation of success as work becomes more challenging.
Making your expectations clear and providing assistance in how to meet those expectations is essential. Explain to students what you expect them to do, how they can achieve those goals, what difficulties they might encounter, ways for them to overcome these difficulties, and what support you and others at the college offer. Provide students with rubrics and frequent opportunities to get feedback from you. Feedback should be timely so that students can use it on the next iteration of an assignment. Point out strengths as well as areas that need improvement. Make suggestions for how students can work toward improvement. Explain to students not only what to study, but how to study to prepare for your tests or quizzes.
Equally, if not more, essential to creating an expectation of success in students is how you frame successes and failures in your interactions with them in and out of the classroom. Also critical is teaching students how to reflect on their own learning for the purpose of improving it. After spring break, we’ll look at a growth vs. fixed mindset and well as teaching students to learn with metacognition. You can kick off this topic by attending the Talking Teaching workshop “Fostering Student Metacognition” tomorrow, Wednesday March 8 from 3-4:30pm in Hood!
