Intrinsic Motivation

This morning I watched Dan Pink's TED Talk 'The Puzzle of Motivation'. He speaks about how there is a mismatch between what science knows and what business does. 

Bonuses, extrinsic rewards etc work well for tasks with a simple set of instructions. They don't work as well for creative problems, as they have been proven to actually narrow people's focus. In Western Europe, North America, Australia and many parts of Asia white collar workers are needing to not only do left brain, routine, rule based work, but are now also required to have more right brain, creative, conceptual abilities. There's the competition of low cost providers around the world being able to do a job cheaper, as well as software being able to do a lot of things faster or at a lower price. 

So how are people going to be motivated without extrinsic rewards? Dan Pink suggests three elements of intrinsic motivation:

1. Autonomy - the urge to direct our own lives. 

2. Mastery - the desire to get better and better at something that matters. 

3. Purpose - the yearning to do what we do to service something larger than ourselves. 

He then goes on to talk about FedEx days, 20 % percent time and ROWE (Results Only Work Environment). It was the first time I'd heard of ROWE. Basically people don't have schedules. They show up to work when they want and don't have to be in the office if they don't want to. They just have to get their work done. How they do it and when they do it is up to them. Research shows that when these three elements of intrinsic motivation are applied in the work place productivity goes up, worker engagement and satisfaction increase. 

If this is correct and this is how things are moving, then how are we preparing our students for their future? When I started watching the TED Talk I had no idea that he was going to talk about FedEx days or 20 % percent time. For me, this just confirmed that what I'm trying to achieve with Adventure Learning is a positive step towards preparing students for when they leave school.

I then became curious about how ROWE could be applied to education. I soon started to come across blogs around ROLE (Results Only Learning Environment). There were teachers that had done away with grades, homework, national testing, set times of the day, attending classes etc. Although not completely realistic in the current NZ education setting, I couldn't help but think that aspects of ROWE or ROLE could still be applied to my classroom. 

Last year I started exploring Independent Learning Plans (ILP) or Personalised Learning Plans (PLP). See my post here http://goo.gl/tigp3H. I now work in a much more traditional style school than I did last year, but am keen to have another go at ILP. ILP provide students with autonomy, mastery and purpose. It lifted student engagement, provided more opportunities for students to teach each other and encouraged them to take responsibility for their learning. This resulted in my students becoming independent learners. 

Here is the TED Talk by Dan Pink 

Tip of the Ice Berg

This also relates well to when others see children's adventure learning sharing items or when people see that a child is 'just' doing skateboarding or baking cupcakes. What you see is only the tip of the ice berg. They don't realise that the group of boys learning about skateboarding are all engaged in something that they're passionate about, that their attendance has improved, that for the first time they're working effectively in a team, learning to compromise and share ideas. They don't see all the planning, practises, time and effort that went into that YouTube video. They look past the fact that for one of those boys it's the first time he's really felt like he's good at something at school, because literacy and maths aren't his strengths. That he feels valued by others in the class, which in turn lifts his self-esteem and gives him the confidence to teach others how to skate, as well as to take risks in other areas of his learning. So next time someone asks why you've let a group of kids do cooking, art or sport for Adventure Learning ask them to look beyond the tip of the ice berg.