Latest / New Teacher Talk / Ep 178: Building Student Motivation Through Attention, Relevance, Confidence, and Satisfaction

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Ep 178: Building Student Motivation Through Attention, Relevance, Confidence, and Satisfaction · New Teacher Talk

Welcome to the latest episode of New Teacher Talk,
where we discuss issues that are important to aspiring and
early career educators.
We're here to support you in your rural, suburban,
or urban school practice.
My name is Kimberly Radostits,
and I am the 2022 Illinois Teacher of the Year and a
teacher at Oregon CUSD 220.
And today I'm going to talk to you about motivational
theory.
It was my seventh year of teaching and I had a student who
changed the way that I think about motivation forever.
I'll never forget it.
It was at freshman orientation the night before school
started and I had just gotten done introducing myself to
him and giving him my best pitch for how I thought it was
going to be the best school year ever.
And he looked me straight in the eye and replied,
I hate school and there ain't nothing that you can do to
change that.
He wasn't angry.
He wasn't acting out.
He was quite calm.
And honestly, that moment has stuck with me ever since.
At first,
I think it was because it was pretty discouraging,
especially considering it was the night before school
started, the night before the very first night of school.
But pretty quickly after that moment,
I also found it to become pretty motivating for me because
I remember thinking to myself that I was going to do
everything in my power to change his mind.
And so that led me down quite a rabbit hole in that I
started researching what it is that motivates someone
towards a task.
And of course, I saw the research on intrinsic motivators,
which are the things that you love or value,
and then extrinsic motivators,
which are things that you want to obtain,
like money or prizes.
But when I dug deeper,
I landed on a model called the ARCS Model of Motivation and
it has been a game changer for me in my classroom.
Quite honestly,
I think that young man changed the trajectory of my career.
And I don't see ARCS Model of Motivation as something
that's going to add to your plate as a new teacher.
If anything,
I see it as a lens that you can look at to plan lessons and
also a lens that you can look through when wanting to reset
the energy in your classes.
So let's walk through it together.
As I said,
ARCS is a model of motivation and it's also an acronym,
an acronym that stands for four different things that's
necessary for someone to be motivated towards a task.
And the first letter of that acronym is A, for attention.
Because let's be honest, motivation starts with attention.
If students aren't mentally present,
learning simply isn't going to happen.
And attention doesn't mean entertainment all the time,
right?
Like, yes,
a game is going to catch the attention of students.
They're going to get excited when you mention a Kahoot or a
Gimkit or a Blooket,
but it doesn't always have to be a game.
Attention simply is something that, you know,
students feel engaged in,
something that catches their attention in a hook capacity.
So that could be something like movement that you bring
into your lesson.
So maybe instead of reading in seats,
students are reading in a gallery walk.
Or they're reading something that's a little higher
interest, like a mystery,
or they're solving a puzzle that has them thinking
critically.
Even small shifts like photos or visuals in a classroom or
starting with a what do you notice brain teaser can really
set the energy in your room.
Our students, if you think about it,
are surrounded by stimulation all day long.
If we want their attention,
we have to be intentional about how we invite them into
learning every day.
And if you find that your lesson starts off great,
but then all of a sudden it somehow kind of gets off track,
go back to this and thinking about what is it that you can
do in that moment to catch the attention of your students.
And if you think about it,
probably some of the best teachers you've ever had didn't
necessarily use movement or games or puzzles,
but it was their passion that they exuded that hooked you
into whatever it was that they were teaching.
So don't undermine that about yourself either.
With that said,
R in the model of motivation stands for relevance.
And relevance might be the most powerful part of
motivation.
Because in practice,
relevance means that students are far more motivated when
they feel known and when their learning connects to their
lives.
So in practice,
this can look like tapping into their passions or
extracurricular interest or showing how learning links to
their future goals or careers.
And this is easily attainable if you start off your school
year with a personal inventory of some sort where you ask
students about some of the things that they're interested
in.
And then you bring in that knowledge throughout the school
year and connecting it to your lessons,
connecting it to your assignments,
to your formative assessments, to your activities.
And it doesn't always have to be in a formal capacity.
Sometimes it's just in some of those informal conversations
that you're having with students.
But lesson personalization gets students thinking that
whatever it is that you're learning in your class has
something to do with them.
And that brings up the motivation almost instantly, right?
If you aren't exactly sure how your lesson connects to
their lives,
put that ball in the student's court and ask them, like,
think about it.
How could this lesson apply to your future life and
offering them the opportunity of thinking critically that
way?
But the bigger thing to think about when it comes to
relevance is the R that's underneath relevance,
and that is relationships.
Because the truth is,
out of all the things that I'm going to say to you today,
I think you're going to agree with me when I say this.
In education, relationships really matter.
When a student knows that you care about them,
when a student knows that you value them,
when a student knows that you believe in them,
that in and of itself is very, very motivating.
And quite honestly goes into the next letter of the ARCS
model of motivation, and that is confidence.
Because confidence is the thing that answers the question
students are often afraid to ask out loud, and that is,
can I actually do this thing?
If a task that you put in front of a student feels
overwhelming, they're often going to shut down.
But building confidence isn't about making that thing
easier.
It's about creating a path to success.
So some practical ways to do that include revisiting past
successes, both in their school or everyday life.
An example might be if you have a student that's really
into mechanics,
and you know that they have built an engine,
or rather taken apart an engine and put it back together.
Talking them through that scenario and how that really
involved a lot of resilience and grit might be some skills
that you can ask them to apply to that five paragraph essay
that you're asking them to write.
But with that five paragraph essay,
you might have to break that into some manageable chunks or
some clear goals where you've provided them with some early
success opportunities through scaffolding that will build
up their confidence, right?
Because when students experience success early and often,
they start to believe in themselves.
And when their confidence grows,
their effort usually follows.
So don't undersell the importance of making sure that a
student feels confident with whatever you have in front of
them.
And then finally, the S in ARCS stands for satisfaction.
And in my opinion, out of all of these,
it's satisfaction that helps motivation stick.
This is where feedback and celebration really,
really matter because effective satisfaction looks like
specific and timely feedback that celebrates growth both in
the big moments and in the small moments.
And that means you're having data-driven conversations with
students that show their progress over time that help them
recognize their improvement because when the students can
see how far they've come,
they're more willing to keep going.
So don't underestimate the power of showing students their
data.
And in addition to that,
we were talking before about relationships and how
relationships matter.
That doesn't just end with the relationship that you have
with your students.
The relationship you have with their families also matters.
And so when you involve their families into the process of
learning by sharing their successes,
by sharing their growth,
by sharing the goals that the students have,
you can also really reinforce motivation and you'll likely
be reinforcing it beyond the classroom.
So here's the good news,
you guys live in an era where AI exists, right?
And while AI is not going to replace relationships or great
teaching,
it can save you some time with some of these things, right?
So if you're having a tough time brainstorming some
engaging hooks for attention, look at AI.
If you need help personalizing lessons for relevance,
look at AI.
If you want a scaffold assignments to build confidence,
look at AI,
because it will just help you out in acting as an assistant
so that you can focus on what matters most,
and that is your students.
And speaking of students,
that one that told me he hated school, well,
he didn't magically become a straight A student,
and I'm not sure that I ever really got him to say that he
loves school,
but he did admit by senior year that he didn't hate it
anymore,
and that reminded me of something that's pretty important,
and that is that motivation isn't about changing who
students are,
it's about changing how we invite them into the learning.
So thank you for being an educator who's willing to learn
alongside me,
and who's willing to do exactly that for students.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for joining the profession.
Be well.
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