Chapter 2 & 2A

As Zeba mentioned in her blog post, children often do become addicted or dependent on rewards given to good behavior. At the same time, I disagree that bribing students cannot lead to true learning because for some students, especially the kindergarteners and lower elementary children, bribery can open doors to various learning experiences. For example, if an English Language Learner (ELL student) is afraid to read English books aloud, you can offer that child a small treat like a sticker while explaining the benefits of practicing reading aloud.  In my practicums, I have seen teachers effectively use bribes in such ways, without excessively using and abusing them.

Previously on the blog, Laura mentioned how younger students tend to be more intrinsically motivated than the older children. I agree with her opinion because through my experience of being a nanny for preschoolers and a tutor for 5th graders, I know first-hand that most young children work hard in class to please their teachers or parents while older children tend to get distracted trying to please their peers.  I think the key to motivate older students is to use this "motivation to please their peers" as an advantage. During my tutoring sessions with 5th graders at Orange City Elementary, I always had students discuss their answers in small groups with each other. I realized that the students enjoyed explaining the process and techniques they used to solve problems to their peers instead of explaining it to me. As Pink mentions in chapter 2, people tend to do better in a relaxed environment because being in a relaxed environments allows us to become more creative.

After reading chapter 2 and about "The Seven Deadly Flaws" I am now determined to never abuse rewards and punishments because I would hate to encourage cheating, shortcuts and unethical behavior in my classroom. Instead of focusing on the short-term and opt for controlling my student's behaviors with strict punishments, I hope I can teach my future students how to set goals for themselves. 

Chapter 2

     I believe Laura and I will have a similar problem while teaching. She claimed making games or activity for every subject, in order to keep the students engaged, will be difficult. All of the activities we learn about during our methods will help us greatly though. Last semester I took a math methods course, and the professor gave us a game every class for us to use in the classroom. During art methods course, we were required to create a whole unit. If everyone happened to save those, I feel we at least have examples to go off of.

     Chapter 2 had an interesting beginning. The research focused upon something exactly in our expertise, Preschoolers. I don't understand how one can form a conclusion about motivation when the research collected is from watching a bunch of preschoolers though. The preschool age is rather unpredictable. I have a nephew who is preschool. He loves to draw, and while I was his nanny last summer he would draw almost every day. However, some days he simply didn't feel like drawing. I think preschool kids are at the age where external motivation is pretty effective. If a preschool student is going to get a shiny award for drawing, he/she will more than likely do so even if they don't like to draw. I think the Sawyer Effect research would have been a lot more accurate if performed on middle or high school students. 

     I found the candle experiment fascinating. I agree with the results the team discovered. People who are rushed or have some sort of pressure upon them, probably wouldn't discover the quick fix to the getting the candle to the wall. I wonder if one would apply the same thinking toward students if the results would be similar? A student who is rushed to finish a worksheet or test is probably going to do a lot worse than a student who is not stressed out by time.
     Zeba brought up an interesting point about the various flaws in the classroom. Her third flaw about the cookies is extremely accurate. Once a teacher rewards students with something tangible such as cookies, stickers, or prizes consistent rewards needs to be maintained. If a teacher stops with the rewards, students usually stop doing what is asked. This is interesting, because almost every teacher I have ever seen has some sort of external motivation in the classroom. 

Chapter 2

I can relate to Zeba’s experience of seeing students’ performance diminish even at the elementary level. Often times, students are excited to get outside for recess and spend time with their friends that they do whatever they can to finish their work beforehand so they don’t have to finish it during recess. However, I really don’t think the other problem of crushing creativity is as much of a difficulty at the elementary level, especially at the younger age. I think students at this level are intrinsically motivated enough that they take pride in their work and want to have the best result out of anyone else in the class, especially when it comes to creative projects.

One thing I will have to focus on when I have my own classroom is turning work into play for my students, which is part of the definition of the Sawyer Effect. I feel like it will be my job to find a way to turn the students’ work into “play.” This doesn’t necessarily mean playing games all the time, but just making lessons interesting to students so they want to work. I believe one of my practicum teachers did a great job at this. This teacher had individual and group work during her math lessons, but she always found an activity to tie into the topic. Some of the activities took up more time, such as making a paper chain to measure students’ height, but other activities were simple tasks, such as having students make a maze with dominos and then adding up all the sides that connected. I got to see many different ideas and activities from this teacher that will help me turn work into play for my future students.

Chapter 2 & 2A

              As Laura Grote pointed out in her Chapter 1 blog post, motivation plays a huge part in the classroom.  She used the example of excelling in her education courses whereas she didn't put forth much effort in lower level classes because they did not interest her and in theory wouldn't have a huge impact on her future plans of becoming an educator.  It is clear that this lower level course hasn't kept Laura from her following her goals student teach next semester; however, for many younger students lacking motivation especially in areas where they aren't interested can have a huge negative impact on their futures. 
         
             Educators are then left looking for ways to motivate these students. This directly ties into Chapter 2 & 2A of Drive, where Pink discusses the "Seven Deadly Flaws."  Many educators often think dangling a reward in front of students will suddenly motivate them and increase performance but it actually has the opposite effect.

              Three of the seven “Seven Deadly Flaws” are ones that I have seen first-hand during practicum.    The first being, crushing creativity, which is often seen when students are in a hurry to simply finish the task without looking in terms of a bigger picture.  What I have seen in middle schools has been “If everyone finishes up the assignment in the next ten minutes everyone will get a piece of candy.”   This also ties into a second flaw, diminishing performance.  Students write an answer down to get an instant reward, which can be the candy or the reward of acceptance by their peers, and put the effort into finishing the task properly or with their fullest potential.  While a student may receive a piece of candy after ten minutes later that week they will see that the assignment they rushed to finish resulted in a bad grade, which in turn can have consequences attached to it. 

                The third “flaw” I’ve seen is that students become addicted or dependent on these rewards.  An example of this was something that I did.  I surprised students by bringing them cookies for doing well on an essay.  Every time I tried to stress the importance of an assignment the students asked for cookies or a treat so they would do their work.  When I said no or I’d think about it the students didn’t turn in their work, however when I agreed the students did their work.  In the end I felt that I was bribing students and they weren’t doing any true learning, which was really disheartening.

                Now that I’ve read these two chapters of Drive, I feel that it if I would have explained to the students why doing their essays were necessary, agreed that yes writing an essay isn’t fun and it can be boring but to reward them for completing their task I brought treats.  Something I need to remember as a future educator is to not make a reward an if-then one, as it brings down performance and takes away from creativity, and to ensure that any extrinsic reward should be unexpected and afford only after the task is complete (p. 64).  An example of this, any time volunteers are needed I see that the volunteers often receive something for donating their time, from something as small as a t-shirt to a gift bag.  They are not bribed into volunteering their time or expect a reward for their service, however are happy to receive anything in the end.  

Chapter 1

Chapter 1 was a lot more difficult to read than the introduction. One particular point that stuck out in this chapter was the whole reward system. The chapter started off with regards to motivation 2.0. The motivation 2.0 was referencing the external reward system. It went on to claim internal motivation was so key. It had various examples of websites and what not that were so successful due to people working on their free will. My problem with this type of thinking is how to motivate young minds? How does one freely work for intrinsic rewards, when they hate school? People are doing successful things, because they are interested in what they are working on. Anyone will work for free if they are proving they can accomplish something they like. My example would be a jigsaw puzzle. As I was younger, I loved doing puzzles and proving I could accomplish something so difficult. However, my brother was the complete opposite. He didn't have the patience to even consider doing a puzzle. Well, if one enjoys school, then sure internal motivation will work great. What if a child doesn't like school? The internal motivation won't work at all then. External rewards can only get a child so far I think, but I guess that is what experience will help with.

Chapter 1 - Isa Murillo

Whether I am on talking to my family back home on Facebook or looking up some directions on SimpleMap, using free resources have become a daily routine of my everyday life. Before reading chapter 1 of "Drive," I never thought about the costs and motivation behind the success of these free businesses. Employers of companies such as Google, Facebook and Wikipedia represents the most powerful new business models: open source. Whether or not a business flourishes, depends on the intrinsic motivation. This directly relates to teaching, because as teachers our behaviors and teaching style, the structure of our lessons and how informal interactions can have a huge effect on our students motivation to succeed in school. In addition, for a student to be successful in this global society they must not only be able to do routine work but also be skillful in empathic, non-routine work. I believe that than an effective educator is someone who looks beyond subjects like math and science and prepares the students to successfully interact and collaborate with the communities in which they will live and work in.  Therefore, through reading this book I hope that I will be able to figure out the key to motivate my students.

Chapter 1

I was really surprised to read that the absence of extrinsic rewards always created dissatisfaction, but their presence doesn’t always lead to job satisfaction. However, after thinking about this statement I can relate this to how I have managed my schoolwork in college. Some of the easiest classes I have taken in college content wise are the classes where I received lower grades than some of the hardest classes I have taken. When looking at the classes I have taken, I can definitely tell what interested me and which classes I could care less about. For example, I have received higher grades in my education classes particularly because I know I will be applying this material in the future, and I enjoy learning about different ways I can improve my teaching abilities. However, there are a couple of 100 level classes where looking back at it was they were the easiest classes I have taken in college, but I didn’t have any motivation to excel in these classes because they didn’t interest me. I find it easier to do the work in classes that I enjoy and want to learn more about than reading up on tons of different areas I don’t enjoy. I would really like to know the effect of taking extrinsic motivators away from people who are primarily intrinsically motivated at their jobs, and if the motivators change throughout the career.  

Chapter 1: The Rise and Fall of Motivation 2.0

Chapter 1: The Rise and Fall of Motivation 2.0

     

     I remember looking up the word “elephant” in the encyclopedia for a third grade project, by the time I was in sixth grade I remember using a computer program to look up words and now I often find myself using Wikipedia to find information, from biographies to movies and even information about the common cold.   Now I use free information dispensers, mainly Google, daily for both school and non-school related searches.  Before reading this, I never thought about the costs involved to distribute this information, including why my mother’s dust covered Encyclopedia Britannicas cost so much and why the instant Google or Wikipedia search engines are free.  After doing some research (on Google) I found that many contributors of Wikipedia had the desire to share information and have the belief that it should be shared with as many people as possible for free.   This directly relates back to teaching for me, as the main desire for becoming an educator to share knowledge with younger generations in order for them to grow and reach their goals.   While teachers do receive payment for “dispersing information” of a specific content area, they don’t receive any physical payment for inspiring students, helping them gain confidence, being a role model, finding new ways to reach students who otherwise “wouldn’t have a chance” according to others as well as many other hats that a teacher is constantly juggling.  This for me similar to those contributors, they share knowledge for the same satisfaction, which gives them the motivation and desire to keep sharing knowledge.

      

     Going more into depth about motivation was the discussion of Motivatio n 2.0, which is I noticed right away as being out dated.  Unlike today’s student, Motivation 2.0 is what motivated me when I was younger; I sought reward over punishment, which for me motivated me in high school- I didn’t want to be punished at home for bad grades so I got good grades.  As I’ve gotten older I can see my motivation has changed somewhat, however there is still some of the same underlying motivation.  In college my drive to do well comes from wanting to succeed in life, putting it in the simplest form good grades will ultimately result in getting a job which in turn will help with having a happy or “good” life.  That being said, since today’s students don’t share my motivation the obvious solution is to find what motivates them.

Intro-amber wortmann

I have to admit that I am already greatly intrigued by this book and I have merely read the introduction. When the author discusses the topic of intrinsic motivation it made me think about my Math methods course I took last semester. Throughout the class, we were given small examples of games we can have our students play. One game in particular was with a bunch of random shapes, which if assembled correctly, would create a square. There was no reward attached to the completion of the square, but there were quite a few of us determined to finish the square. This seems to be a perfect example of the intrinsic motivation driving people to accomplish things.

When the author discusses the research experiment performed by Deci with the college students, a few interesting points came to mind while reading. When group A showed great interest due to the money reward, and then barely any when the money was taken away it proved motivation is temporary when rewards are involved. I think if a company rewarded employees when work is done, then if the reward can no longer be available, won’t all of the workers be lost? The company would fall apart all due to the choice of motivation.

With the two topics in mind, if I were a principal, I would much rather hire a teacher who is self motivated to help the students. He/she shouldn’t be worried about the amount of pay provided or the resources (technology) provided. A good teacher can be effective, if he/she wants, even if the only thing available is merely a chalkboard and paper.