Category: Motivation

Five Ways to Promote Student Autonomy

Published on by Sandy Davis

As educators, one of our main goals is to help our students become independent and self-directed learners. But how can we do that?

One way is to promote student autonomy in the classroom. This means giving students the opportunity to make their own decisions and choices about their learning.

Here are five ways you can promote student autonomy in your classroom:

  1. Offer choices: Give students the opportunity to choose the topic they want to learn about, the project they want to work on, or the group they want to work with. This allows them to take ownership of their learning and feel more invested in the process. Encourage students to take ownership of their learning by providing them with choices and allowing them to make decisions about their assignments and projects.

  2. Encourage self-reflection: Help students to think about their own learning and progress. Encourage them to set goals for themselves and reflect on their progress towards achieving those goals. This will help them to become more self-aware and take responsibility for their own learning.

  3. Foster independence: Encourage students to take charge of their own learning and to seek out help when they need it. This could mean setting up a resource center where students can access books and other materials, or providing opportunities for students to work on their own or in small groups.

  4. Provide regular feedback to students on their progress and encourage them to reflect on their own learning and development.

  5. Continuously assess and evaluate your teaching methods to identify what is working and what can be improved, and make changes as needed to support student autonomy.

Self-Determination Theory and Student Motivation

Published on by Sandy Davis

What is Self-Determination Theory?

Self-determination theory refers to a person’s ability to make choices and manage their own life. Being self-determined means that you feel in control, rather than being controlled by others.

Self-determination theory plays an important role in mental health and well-being. Promoting self-determination in your classroom not only motivates students, but leads to better learning outcomes. It is also an emerging best practice when working with students who are not neurotypical or who have learning or behavioral difficulties.

Self-determination theory focuses on three basic psychological needs:

Autonomy: A desire to feel in control.

Competence: A sense of accomplishment that builds confidence in one’s ability to learn.

Relatedness: A desire to belong and feel connected to others.


Self-Determination Theory in the Classroom

Teachers can cultivate self-determination theory in the classroom and increase student motivation by working to increase student autonomy, competence, and relatedness.

Self-determination theory provides a framework for helping teachers foster student motivation and engagement, as well as improving learning outcomes.

This approach will transform the way you think about teaching, student motivation, and course design and preparation.

Tips for Creating Self-Determination in the classroom:

In my next post, I will go over ways to faciliate student autonomy, improve competence and confidence, and foster relatedness and connectedness in your classroom and curriculum. Be sure to follow my blog to receive updates in your inbox.

Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Motivation

Published on by Sandy Davis

Too much of teaching is based in the carrot vs. the stick mentality: reward vs. punishment, neither of which is an effective tool for motivation and both of which are extrinsic, or external.

For example, if you’re sitting in your room or apartment and it’s messy, you might decide on your own to clean it up. Maybe you’re tired of living in a messy environment, or maybe you just want to do something to get going. You spend several hours cleaning and organizing and when you’re done it feels great. Just the internal satisfaction of doing a difficult task and then enjoying a clean room gives you a hit of dopamine, which makes you more likely to engage in this behavior in the future.

However, if you are compelled to clean your room by somebody else, either through punishment (a threat: clean your room or else…) or a reward (i.e. money), you may complete the task, but rather than experiencing internal satisfaction, you are more like to experience either resentment (if you’re doing it to avoid punishment), or entitlement (if you’re doing it for an extrinsic reward). Neither of these feelings will change your habits for the better. In fact, research shows that people who are paid to complete a task often perform more poorly than those who are not (see Daniel Pink’s Drive).

For teachers, we have to find a way to build up our students sense of intrinsic satisfaction for completing a task. In future blog posts I’ll explore ways of doing this, but for now know that threatening punishment, or offering a reward (for teachers this is often candy or a class party) are not effective incentives or motivators over the long term.