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Best of Bonk Handouts-Motivation Research

Motivation Research Highlights (Brophy)

  1. Supportive, appropriate challenge, meaningful, moderation/optimal.
  2. Teach goal setting and self-reinforcement.
  3. Offer rewards for good/improved performance.
  4. Novelty, variety, choice, adaptable to interests.
  5. Gamelike, fun, fantasy, curiosity, suspense, active.
  6. Higher levels, divergence, dissonance, interact with peers.
  7. Allow to create finished products.
  8. Provide immediate feedback, advance organizers.
  9. Show intensity, enthusiasm, interest, minimize anxiety.
  10. Make content personal, concrete, familiar.

Other Classroom Motivation Tips (Alexander, class notes, Pintrinch & Schunk, 1996; Reeve, 1996; Stipek, 1998):

  1. Include positive before negative comments.
  2. Wish students "good effort" not "good luck".
  3. Give flexibility in assignments and due dates.
  4. Communicate respect via tasks select and control.
  5. Design interactive and interesting activities.
  6. Use coop learning, debates, group discussions.
  7. Minimize social comparisons and public evaluations.
  8. Use relevant, authentic learning tasks.
  9. Use optimal difficulty and novelty.
  10. Use challenge, curiosity, control, and fantasy.
  11. Give challenging but achievable tasks.
  12. Create short term or proximal goals and vary these goals.
  13. Give students different ways to demo what they know.
  14. Encourage students to give and get help.
  15. Attrib failure to low effort or ineffective strategy (Attrib success to effort or competence).
  16. Give poor performing student the role of expert.

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