I really enjoyed this week's reading on motivation, "Motivation Principles" by Keller & Burkman. I think the principles are for the most part intuitive but yet a good deal of instruction fails to include them. Relevance and meaningfulness are well known motivators but I definitely learned some new ideas to motivate learning that I never considered. For example, the idea that "provoking mental conflict stimulates curiosity" was new and quite interesting to me. They suggest presenting the learner with counterintuitive facts or paradoxical examples to create some cognitive dissonance and get them curious about the validity of the information. After thinking about it I realized it makes good sense. I often hear something that doesn't match my previous knowledge or my mental construct and I have to get on the computer to resolve the dissonance that's been created in my head. This usually results in learning that I was wrong (keep that on the D.L.).
I hope to be able to apply some of these principles to the instruction for our major project in this course. Although the instruction is for a Coast Guard course in which learners would be required to attend, it's still important to use these principles to ensure the learning is effective. Many of these principles are applicable to any instruction, like #2 Relevance and #4 Positive Outcomes. The latter was also an interesting topic, especially concerning the importance of intrinsic motivation. Daniel Pink wrote an excellent book on this topic called "Drive" - I highly recommend this book. He also has a great TED Talk that has been animated.
Well, I better get going - the main event on WWE is about to start! The Undertaker is taking on CM Punk......Yowsers!!!
Until next time,
John
Hi John,
ReplyDeleteI also really liked these "Motivation" principles. I believe that motivation affects achievement directly. For example, your coast group did great job for R521 class last semester. I think that the first and most important factor was your group's motivation on your topic, especially your intrinsic motivation. A Turkish scholar was saying "If you look good, you can see good. If you see good, you can think good. If you think good, you can enjoy your life." I think that these all factors are related to motivation in some respects. I hope we are going to have enough motivation about everything in our rest of life. :)
Thanks,
Remzi
Remzi,
ReplyDeleteThat's a good point, we had a great deal of personal interest in the topic because we've dealt with this material in our careers and knew there was a need for better training. I really like the Turkish scholar's words of wisdom - it's very interesting!
Thanks,
John