MOTIVATION AND THE BRAIN

Motivation and the brain

The controlling vs. Expression paradigm

An all-too- common question often asked is “ how do you motivate participants ?” the answer is both simple and complex. First of all, even the question shows a misunderstanding of the real nature of motivation. The human brain loves to learn. In fact, its survival depends on leaning. Learners have already motivated themselves for much of their life. Their brains have hungrily absorved information, integrated it, made mearning out of it, remembered it and used it at the appropriate moment thousands of times. Therefore the question, “ how do I motivate participants,” says more about the asker than the participants.

One thing it says about the asker is,that their context for asking is not learning, it’s control. The question they are really asking is, “ how can i control their behavior ? the truth, the real answer, will make no sense in the paradigm or context of control. You have to leave the to get an answer that makes sense. Is your paradigm that your job is to be a learning catalyst ( one who lights a fire for learning ) or that of a “ presenter “ ( one who stands and delivers-once the participants are under control ) ? in the paradigm of a presenter , there are many ways to motivate temporarily. In the paradigm of a learning catalyst, its a moot question. After all, in brain- based learning environment, the learners are already motivated-just the way they already were before walking to class. Management guru Dr. Deming said that “ all human being are born with intrinsic motivation. They don’t need someone to stand over them and motivate them.

The folly of labeling learners

The unmotivated learner is myth. Rarely are the most motivating conditions for learning met in a typical context. This may explain why so many have been labeled as “underachievers” or uninterested. To even arrive at business or a classroom requires some sort of motivation. It may be positive or negative, but it has gotten them there. Once the learner is in the seat, either they are bringing a new strong motivating attitude with them or the presenter need to eicit one. The demotivated learner’s negative belief and behaviors are usually triggered or reinforced by an artificial, unresponsive school environment. Identifying, classifying, grouping, labeling,evaluating, comparing, and assessing these demotivated learners has done little to solve the problem.

There is no such thing as an unmotivated learner

There are, however, temporary  unmotivated states

That schools, presenters on the participants

Themselves can trigger

Each learner is either motivated from within ( intrinsic ) on from the outside ( extrinsic). All of the following de-motivate learners and drive out of them any possibility of instrinsic motivation.

·         Coercion, control and manipulation

·         Weak, critical or negatively competitive relationship

·         Infrequent or vague feedback

·         Outcome base earning

·         Inconsistent policies and rules

·         Top-down management and policy making

·         Repetitive, rote learning

·         Sarcams, put-down and criticism

·         The perception or irrelevant content

·         Boring, single-media presentation

·         Reward systems of any kids

·         Teaching in just one or two of the multiple intelligences

·         Systems that limit reaching personal goals

·         Responsibility without authority

·         Hopelessness in achieving academic success

Most presenter use both instrinsic and extrinsic forms of motivation. As a resut much of the good thing that are done by a presenter are undermined by themselve or others. The obvious choice is to have your learners motivated mostly from within. To do that, it btakes a more brain based approach. The researcher on motivation is both powerful and persuasive.

The school environment for the most learnersis quite antagonistic towards the brain. Educators would iteraly be astonished by the motivated learning accomplished in a brain compatible environment

Should the environment be all smiles hugs and easy grades ? absolutely not. The brain thrives on challenges and variety. Stanford bioogists separated amoebae cultures into three petri dishes. One was the control, the ohther gave the amoebae and abundance of food, ight and heat. The third gave the amoebae enough of each but not excessive. In fact the am ounts were randomy varied. You might guess the results : the third amoebae  culture developed the strongest and lived longest. Can you apply that to our own environment ? maybe : don’t punish the participants excesssively or make everything so easy they never grow. When learners are required to figure it out, to earn what they get and develop themselves, they will grow more.

Instrinsic vs extrinsic motivation

Motivation refers to the state within a person or animal that drives behavior toward some goals     ( Morgan and King  1986 )

Motivation refers to all the internal conditions that stir up activity and sustain activity of an individual. ( Guliford 1967 )

Motivation can be described as "goal to be achieved through certain behaviors “                                           ( Cropley 1985 )

Much of the extrinsic motivation charactheristic originate in the home life. Feuerstein says extrinsically –motivated learners tend to avoid dissatisfaction by focusing on the ease, comfort , safety and security afforded in non task conditions. “ each of  those factors has been identified as being ‘ culturally responsive “. Translated this means , they were brought up that way. While we have ittle influence on those factors, we can influence others. Organize learning around the way the brain naturally ikes to learn.  Researcher bishop makes the distinction very well :

“ young people are not lazy. In their jobs after school and on the football field, they work very hard. In these environments they are part of the team where individual efforts are visible and appreciated byteammates. Competition and rivalry are not absent, but they are offset by shared goals, shared suksek and external measures of achievement on the sports field , there is no greater sin than giving up, even when the score is hopelessly one- sided. On the job, tasks not done by one worker will generally have to be completed by another.

When a learner drops out of scholl, he is not unmotivated, he just wanted a more responsive environment, which the world outside of school’s cimate. Poicies, presenter methodoogies and systems, we can keep the focus on earning and hook learners in for a lifetime.

Let’s say a learner seems unmotivated all week long. Presenters say that he has no motivation or concentration . but on Saturday he has guitar lessons. He practices for hours without any bribe or external motivation. This activity make quite a statement about how much the brain love to learn.

There is a great deal of disagreement among researchers regarding what promotes intrinsic  motivation. In fact an interesting question is “ should  100 % intrinsic motivation even be desired ? many would say no . regardless, here are characteristics of intrinsically motivated  learners. They :

• Seek to exercise control over their environment
• Seek stimulation, activity and incongruities
• Have little or few feelings of inferiority
• Have high self- concept and contextual beliefs
• Prefer chalenge, problem-solving and novelty
• Have high expectations of success
• Get satisfaction from responsibility and achievement
• Have strong self efficacy to maintain

Feelings of competenceand self determination

This list can suggest many strategies for developing greater motivation. But other condition can be developed in a earning context, many of which are relatively simple to do. This is important to realize, especially since “ actual ability is relatively independent of motivational determinants of achievement “, says feuerstein. Drawing from the combined work ofthe authors singer, glasser, lozanov, hart,wlodlowski, murphy and donovan, we can outine what thebrain needs for optimal motivation :

Condition and strategies for eiciting intrinsic motivation

1.      Meet perceived need and goals

The brain is disigned biologically to survive. It will learn what it needs to earn to survive. Make it a top priority to discover what needs your earners have and engage those needs. If participants need what you have,they are interested. If the content reates to the students own personal life, they are interested . for example, six- year old participants have higher needs for security, predictability and presenter acceptance than a 14 year old learner. Their need are more likely to be peer acceptance, a sense of importance and hope. An 18 year oold learner is more interested in autonomy and independence. Use what’s appropriate for the age level of your participants.

2.      Provide control and choice

Creativity and choice allow the earner to express and feel vaued. The opposite of this manipulation, coercion and contro. Control and choice lowers stress and drawa out what the learner realy wants to do and learn

3.      Positive social bonding

This comes in many forms : a presenter they like, a classmate they like or partners and teams they like. Again this reduces helpness and stress

4.      Curiosity

We all know that inquiring minds want to know thats the nature of the human brain keep engaging curiosity-it works! Newspaper tabloids and electronics tabloids have played off our curiosity for years. Witness all the stories about elvis, aliens, charles and diana, o.j simpson, ceebrities and UFOs

5.      Engage strong emotions

Engage emotions productively with compelling stories, games, personal examples, celebrations, rore-play , debates, rituals, music,  we are driven to act upon our emotions because they are compelling decision-makers.

6.      Nutrition

Better nutrition means  alertness. Learn about how we think, learn and want to improve. Write up a list of suggestions, give to participants or parents or both. Suggest specipic brain food  ( eggs, fish, nuts, leafy dark green vegetables, appleas, bananas and others mentioned essewhere in this book ).

7.      Use multiple intelligences

They can really hook learners in : spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, verbal-linguistic , intrapersonal, musical- rhythmic, mathematical- logical .we are particularly motivated when we can do something in an area that we have already developed as one of our seven inteligences.

8.      Success stories

How have past participants done ? what obstaces have they overcome to sukses ? any famous ? any who have made major contribution ? these stories form structure that creates a mythology of success. Just walking on to the campus of a famous university like oxford, harvard, stanford ,wharton or notre dame can elicit feelings of motivation.

9.      Acknowledgments

These include assemblies, certificates, group notices, team reports, peers who give compliments, presenters who praise appropriately. These give the brain positive associations which continue to fuel further actions.

10.  Frequency of feeback

Make it your part-time  job to make sure earners get far more feedback each class, use peers, charts, discussion, peer presenting, projects, rore-play. The all- time best way to motivate the brain is with information: immediate and dramatic

11.  Physiological states

Learn to read and manage states. There is no such thing as an unmotivated earner, only unmotivated states. Elicit anticipation and challenge states. Learn to manage your own states to get the best out of yourself.

12.  Provide hope of success

Learners need to know that’s it’s possible for them to succeed. Regardless of the obstacles or how far behind, hope is essential. Dr. Gelenberg of the university of arizona anddr. Jerome frank of johns hopkins strongly belief that hope works like a powerful drug and is essential to restoring demoralization.

13.  Role model joy of learning

Sinceover 99 % of all learning is non conscious, the more you get excited about learning, the more motivated your learners are likely to be excited

14.  Celebrations

These include peer acknowledgment, parties, food, hi- five’s, chers, etc. These create the atmosphere of success and can trigger the release of endorphins thats boost futher learning

15.  Physically and emotionally safe

The environment should be emotionally safe to make mistakes and physicallly safe from hazards or other participants. Safe to ask any question and safe to make contributions. Physical needs met for lighting, water, food. Movement and seating.

16.  Use learners learning style

Provide both choice in how learners learn and diversity in what your offer. By appealing to the learners best strategies you will make it more accessiblle.

17.  Positive beliefs

Reinforce to learners that they can succeed and can do this particular task. Discover what those beliefs are as soon as posible and work to affect them positively.

All of the items mentioned above cost nothing and they work. It is certainly more preparation and work initially, to create a climate of instrinsic motivation, but it pays off in the long run. Presenters who rely on extrinsic motivation may be vastly underestimating three things :

1.      The power of their influence

2.      The disire of the learner to be instrinsically motivated

3.      The long term ease in doing it

combining these, an example might be : learners working on a team, with no academic grades as a threat, with members they like , choosing how to solve a problem on a arger personallly meaningful project, with a moderate, but not constricting, time deadline in a rich, stimulating environment.

Much learning occurs as a by product of another activity

In research by wentzel, it was found that optimal learning does not necessarily require massive motivation. Often, when participants who would not ordinarily be engaged. Focus on their own self-determination, learning  becomes the positive by –product. Ford says multiple social context provide greater oppotunities for learner goal attainment and satisfaction. In fact the argument is made that the learners brain is in a better state for learning when traditional learning is disquised. In other words, in areas where the learning is a by product of the activity the learner may excel the most. Multiple contexts for learning are also powerful. Lozanov utilized games  role play and peripherals to immerse the lerner in an environment in which the learning was usually only a by product of all ese that was going on

Emotions are essential key to motivation

Utilizing the whole brain approach, acknowledging both eft and right hemisphere learning, says levy “ respects the inseparability of cognition and emotion.  She adds that by purposefully engaging your learners in meaningful  emotional  processess, you will tap into more of the students brain

A top researcher on emotions N.H Fridja says that understanding learner emotions is one of the key to motivation. Although the presence ofemotions doesn’t guarantee the content of the problem, it tells the brain  this is important pay attention ! emotions influences.

·         Selective attention

·         Event interpreatation

·         Motivation

·         Prediction

·         Recall

·         Decision-making

·         Problem solving

·         Learning

When strong emotions are engaged,they so flavor the human experience that the learner is unable to brimg anything else to conscious attention. Unlike a typical cognitive thought, once emotions are fully engaged they can not be hidden or made non consciously without a great degree of effort. In  other words, while some learners may be able to temporarily ignore a powerful emotion for a few minutes, it does need to have a form of expression. How often are earners distracted from learning by previous arguments in the halls, at home or in the school playgrounds ?

Emotion  run the brain most of the time not our cortex . lets say that you know that you should do an errandor make a phone call or pay a bill.  You have all the reasons to do it. Buy you still put it off.  For how long ? until you feel like doing it. Domasio says that emotion and ogic are so interwoven, we should not even attem;pt to untangle them. His research suggests taht it’s a bilological survival function to use the emotions to pursue better decision making strategies.

What this means to you : by learning to manage our own emotion, we can stay better motivated to be at our best . by enpowering out learners to be able to manage their own emotions, they too canbecome self motivated.

Actively pursue emotion engaging startegies sush as drama, suspense and celebration. Utilize emotions as an ally and powerful strategy for learning. The evidence is strong that it will pay off. Becautious, however. Make sure to be aware of any participants with emotional disturbances.

Choice remains critical to maintainig motivation

Should learners be told what to do or should they be given choice? The answer partly depends on the age of the learner. Regardless of age, however, most learners are given little choice in their learning situations, which are organized, routed, facilitated and structured for them by others. That is not good, according to the research teams of deci and ryan and deci valerrand, pelletier and ryan.

When participant are given control over the content and process of their learning, motivation goes up, say mager and Mc. Cann. But to motivate learners, it is important to allow them to make choices about personally relevant aspects of a leaning activity. Students need to be able to align self determined goals with instructional goals.

In addition learners who tend to focus more on funand frienship may be abe to be engaged when there are ample oppurtunities for self determination and peer interaction. Says wentzel. These provide ways to meet personal goals and to some degree instructional goals, in other words the more ways the goals can serve the learners own agendas, the better.

These are ways to tap into llearning. Excitement and participation levels for many learners who appear to be unmotivated. Help learners to become more aware of their own personal, academic, health, socia, athletic, and career goals. A learner is often wiling to work on a team project because there is another person on the project that he likes and woud like to get to know better.

What this means to you :

Design instructional experiences that allow fore more ways for learners to meet their own goals. They need ways to show off, meet new people, be an expert in something, grow, get in shape or become well respected. Implement as many of the optima motivating conditions possible as much of the time as possiblle. Avoid nlabeling any learners as a low or unmotivated learner until he has had the consistent experience of optimal conditions and the chance to prove himself.