What motivates you?

Yesterday I participated in Part 1 of 3 of a webinar training about Self Determination Theory. As this was the first session, we merely brushed the surface, but our primary objective was determining the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, and how we can encourage the former.

For those who don't know, intrinsic motivation happens when people want to do something because it appeals to their sense of relevance, values, and/or long-term goals. An example relevant to education would be people doing well in a subject because it interests them. An example relevant to all of us would be taking out the garbage because we don't want the house to smell. Extrinsic motivation is when people do something for external reasons, like getting a good grade or getting a promotion. So for example, if a parent tells a child to do their homework or they're grounded, the child has external motivation to do it, but isn't necessarily getting anything out of it because their internal motivation hasn't been activated. Thus, homework to the extrinsically motivated child is something they "must" do rather than "choose" to do.

The tough question is: how do we get students to "choose" to do something, thus propelling their internal motivation? External motivation alone won't cut it. This is the case regardless of your age. Yes, my adult students respond to candy in the same way my teenage students did -- but what's the bigger motivation that drives them? Getting their GEDs, sure, but there has to be something beyond that point. Part of my job is to steer them toward a more long-term goal, but this is challenging when they didn't grow up in an environment in which "long-term" was normal vocabulary. I'm eager to see if this webinar will uncover ways to help students reach this mindset.

At the end of the webinar, the instructor gave us an assignment to complete before the next session to get full PD points, to which one participant said it was external motivation that was making us complete the assignment -- but I think it's a little of both (if you're interested in this topic, that is). At this point I'm still chewing on what we discussed yesterday, and will hopefully have more to blog about next week.