Intrinsic versus Extrinsic motivation

Last night a teacher described to me what happened in a physics class that he was taking as a relief teacher. A boy was playing a game on his mobile phone instead of doing his worksheet on physics problems. The teacher came up to him and gave him a motivational talk - reminded him of his aims, and basically sold the benefits of doing the worksheet in terms of how it would help him meet his aims (to pass physics and enable him to be an engineer.) The boy later on said to the teacher how much he appreciated being put on track again, rather than wasting time.

That is extrinsic motivation. Have a distant goal and a plan of how to get there. It is very valuable for our students to have goals, to be helped to see and clarify goals, and sometimes to be reminded of them...

However.... why was he playing games? Was he bored? Why wasn't he intrinsically interested in what he was supposed to be doing?

It is interesting that one principle of holistic schools according to Scott Forbes is that education should be for the present - not just for a distant future.... it needs to be intrinsically important NOW. So what does that mean?

To continue my theme on learning through computer games, it seems that the Zone that students get into is about NOW learning. I guess I have usually thought of NOW learning in terms of learning a skill which we will use right away. But I am now thinking it is something more - a process, a state of being - a place of creatively making connections, seeing patterns and rules and having insights. It is a state of dynamism and excitement, can be fuelled by curiosity (a desire to know something), or a desire to achieve something.

I remember back to my own teaching of physics in the latter part of the 90's. Very rarely would a student be off task (and if so it was usually because of a major calamity in their life). Students were engaged fully, even to the extent that they would come to class early, stay late, and continue discussing physics ideas into their next classes. They were curious and motivated. I had worked on improving their scientific and inclusive discourse skills and they loved teasing out ideas, critiquing theories and coming up with their own. Yes, they were hooked on the continued insights they were making.

So what is different about my physics class to the one with the bored, off task boy? Well if you are doing worksheets which always start with an easy problem and gradually construct understanding bit by bit, there is really nowhere for the student to participate in the creation of ideas and insight. What sort of approach then enables students to feel the creativity and buzz of making insights and connections for themselves?

Well I was very interested back then in exploring teaching approaches based on Gregory Bateson's ecology of the mind. He says that we teachers need to avoid making things too linear and connecting everything for our students. He would deliberately mix up the way he facilitated learning - sometimes linear, sometimes complex, sometimes rational, sometimes metaphoric, sometimes dialogical - some aspects which resonated with each other, and some which created dissonance. The aim was to have enough diversity, complexity and feedback (sounds like a real ecosystem) to enable students to create understanding for themselves - to make their own connections, to have their own insights. And aside from the fact that this creates greater sustainability and longevity of understanding it also creates pleasure... because learning something this way is very pleasurable and provides intrinsic motivation.

So while a worksheet which constructs understanding step by step sometimes is useful, it really isn't deep and complex enough to fuel weeks of scientific discourse and exploration. What is?

Now that would giving away too many trade secrets!