Understanding Learners

EEE208 – Understanding Learners (Primary)

Assignment 1

Amy Cain – 211325704

Two factors that influence a student’s desire and willingness to learn are motivation and self-esteem.

Motivation is our desire to act, it is an “internal process that activates, guides and maintains behaviour over time.” (O’Keefe, 2012). Our motivation gives us energy and drives us to complete our tasks. Motivation can either intrinsic or extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation refers to motivation that comes from within a person (such as the desire to do well), whereas extrinsic motivation is linked to some kind of reward (such as money or a good mark).

The issue with students’ motivation at school is that students are not always motivated to do the things that teachers want them to do. It is vitally important that a teacher gets to know his or her students, enabling them to identify ways to motivate every student.

Intrinsically motivated students and extrinsically motivated students are motivated at different levels and this can lead to the quality of their learning being varied. If a student is motivated to learn the work in order to better their knowledge, they are likely to remember the information later. However, a student motivated by the promise of a good mark could have an excellent recall of the information immediately after learning it, but be unable to retrieve this information at a later date.

Self-esteem refers to the “feelings people have about their own capabilities and worth,” (McDevitt & Ormrod, 2004). Berk (2006) refers to self-esteem as the judgements we make about ourselves and the feelings we associate with those judgements.

Positive self-esteem should be one of the foremost goals of education. Positive self-esteem leads to a happier child – they like themselves, they believe others like them, they believe they can achieve success in their work. Our self-esteem is relational, drawing on how we imagine that other people see us and what their opinions of us are.

Topic 1: Motivation

The Baobab Tree

This observation is on a small group literacy activity. Five students were selected (based on similar ability) to create a fact file on “The Baobab Tree”, a book they read as a class earlier that morning.

Most of the students began working straight away. However, one student, Merryn was unmotivated to begin the new task as it meant interrupting her previous activity – independent reading. Due to conversations with Merryn regarding reading, I know that she often engages deeply in the book she’s reading and doesn’t like to be suddenly told to stop. I think that perhaps she needed a 5-minute warning prior to changing activities in order to mentally withdraw from her book and be ready to begin the next activity.

I believe that Merryn is intrinsically motivated when it comes to reading. Her reading is solely for herself, and she does not seek recognition for the number of books she reads or the difficulty level of those books.

During this group task, Merryn seemed to be extrinsically motivated. She did not have much of a personal interest vested in the task, and seemed to want to complete the task as soon as possible so that she could continue reading.

        One student who stood out as highly self motivated was Bik. Bik began working straight away and seemed genuinely interested in the task. He remembered the steps to creating a fact file as taught by the teacher, which suggests he enjoys this kind of literacy work. Bik drew a diagram to enhance his work.

        I believe Bik was intrinsically motivated to complete this task. He was interested in the task and began straight away, and appeared to seek no recognition for his work – he was simply doing the best he could because he wanted to further his learning.

Crab Moon

        My second observation discussing motivation is a whole class literacy activity, focussing on one student. The students sat on the floor and while the teacher read a text (Crab Moon) the students completed a picture of events.