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Learning Cell #2 on Ch.9:

Motivation, Affect, and Cognition
Tamara Elias
EDPE: Educational Psychology
Dr. Birlean
McGill University

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Question
As a future teacher I would like to learn to build a classroom environment that
keeps my future students motivated. School itself tends to encourage extrinsic motivation
by rewarding behavior and the method of grading. Teachers shouldnt be focused on the
here and now but on the future of their students. The meaning of grades in a students
future can get in the way of their intrinsic motivations, but we should try to make every
students learning experience as meaningful as possible by helping them find their
intrinsic motivator. As future educators, what can we do to get students who are
extrinsically motivated to become intrinsically motivated about a subject? The process of
going to school should not get in the way of a students learning or potential, so how do
we enable this process to become more positive?

Elements of answer
-Firstly, showing students different perspectives, freeing them from the single-minded
schemes they may have established about the world themselves through early
experiences. Giving students options is very important; we should always be careful
about the way we look at the world, instead of trying to manage a classroom we should
be looking to engage our students in the classroom. If we want our students to engage,
we need to allow for autonomy to the students; making sure we are not making decisions
for them or imposing our values on them. We can do so by
-Encouraging mastery: every student has different interests so as teachers we should
encourage each and every student to find one thing they would like to be successful at

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and make time for it. This could be 15-20 minutes set aside out of every day to master
ones own skill.
-Making sure every lesson has purpose, if materialistic profit is the purpose or in a
students case; the grades is the profit than the student is less likely to strive. When
engaging students and including purpose and meaning within the learning, than learning
can become a continuous profit, where students are inspired and thrive more because they
what they are doing has a purpose. For example, have students get into groups where
those who share similar interests collaborate and to create a project that helps, advances
or informs people on what they are motivated by and why. This way they dont need a
reward because they are motivating each other in something that excites each and every
one of them, which is the reward, learning becomes fun because it has a purpose, the
students in each group are intrinsically motivated to begin with, but in this group activity
they are feeding it.

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Reference

Ormrod, J. E., Saklofske, D. H., Schwean, V. L., Andrews, J. J. W. & Shore, B. M.

(2010). Principles of educational psychology (Second Canadian Edition). Toronto,
Canada: Pearson Education Canada.