MAT 671 Assignment 3A- Extrinsic and Intrinsic Motivation

Extrinsic and Intrinsic Motivation

Describe an event in your schooling in which you were inspired to perform.

I went to school at California State University San Marcos and pursued a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration. Everyone in that program is required to participate in a group project in one of their last semesters called Senior Experience. This was one really memorable event in my schooling where I was really inspired to perform and there were a few reasons why. I was really motivated for this project because I was able to work with a group of up to 5 students and we were able to pick our own groups for this project. I enjoyed finding teammates that were hard working so that I could count on them throughout the project. I also enjoyed this project because we had a say in the assignment.

The basic idea behind Senior Experience is that each group will get paired with a company who has a need. There are all different types of companies and all different needs. As a group, you are able to sit down and read about each company and pick your groups top 3 choices for what companies they would like to work with for the last semester. The administrators of the course paired groups with companies as best they could.

What also made this exciting and motivating is that this was a real-world assignment. After all our schooling, we were required to take the skills we had learned and apply them to this company’s need. We met with a representative from the company and heard what they were looking for, we met with an advisor to go over our progress throughout the process and were able to bounce ideas off of them as well as get honest feedback, but we were able to choose what we wanted to do and also how we wanted to present our project. The freedom along with the practical assignment was so fun for me. Our team presented to the company and were happy to see they actually wanted to put our ideas into action. Very satisfying and rewarding.

Describe an event in your schooling in which you were completely deflated.

On the flip side, I recently had a professor in my teaching program who clearly was not up to speed with the way National’s program is run. It was a class we were required to take on campus so I was excited to go and meet some other students in my cohort. After the second class session I felt completely defeated. Students would ask this professor about what was expected of us on certain assignments and the teacher could not clearly answer. Class after class we left not feeling like we were really learning anything practical.

This particular teacher had retired from teaching quite a long time ago and had no experience to offer us for the modern classroom, it was all how things were done in the past. As someone who wants to teach elementary school, I know that the way teachers taught us when I was growing up is extremely different now and as a classroom management class, I was looking forward to hearing about how to manage a classroom now with cell phones and all other sorts of challenges that were not around when I was growing up.  

Because of the lack of knowledge on the topic he was teaching, along with the wavering answers about assignments and points in the class, I truly felt defeated. The only thing that kept me going to class was the fact that I needed to get through it because I wanted to move on in my program in order to Student Teach this term, and also that I paid the tuition for the class and was not about to pay that amount twice.

As a teacher, what will you be certain TO DO, and certain to AVOID in motivating young people?

In my own classroom I would like to be a teacher that is a role model by delivering information with energy and enthusiasm and passion. I learned in my business experiences, especially doing a little bit of sales, that if you don’t even believe in the product you cannot expect someone else to believe in it. I also want to just get to know my students to that I can make sure I am connecting the content to their interests whenever possible. I also want learning to be fun so I will do my best to incorporate visual aids or field trips or anything I can to enhance student learning.

I actually really liked learning more about Project Based Learning because I want to use student active teaching activities that engage students in the material and allows them to learn through problem solving and discovering. I feel like that type of learning is really satisfying. I also will make sure I incorporate cooperative learning. If there is one thing I have learned over and over in all my prep classes for teaching is the benefits of cooperative learning. I do think that type of learning can be motivating for students.

 I never want my students to feel like I don’t know what I am talking about so I will make sure to always come to class prepared just as I expect them to come. I do not want my students guessing about their expectations so I will make sure to be very clear with my communication with them and also transparent with their parents or guardians.

Not having much time in the classroom yet I feel like I am only scratching the surface on what makes up a motivating teacher and I am sure I will learn more strategies as I student teach and as I have my own classroom one day and hopefully even through professional growth opportunities.