24/09/2013 MOTIVATION ESSAY Kimberly Brown
At the start of the class the instructor asked the students what they knew about Global Warming. As the students shared their answers the attention among all seemed to increase. This result is consistent with what is expected according to Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Asking the students questions relative to a subject that is fairly familiar to them feeds into their self-confidence and thus their self- esteem.
1 Because the instructor’s line of questioning made the students feel better about themselves they became motivated and engaged. However, this engagement fell as the instructor wrote vocabulary words on the board for about four minutes while the students sat silently. The instructor’s actions at this point totally negated the confidence built in the moments before. By essentially ignoring the students and having them sit unoccupied in order to write words on the board the professor communicated that the words on the board were more important than the interests of the students in the classroom. The instructor completely disengaged from the students during this time and focused her full attention on the whiteboard. Also, the decrease in motivation of a few students seemed to negatively affect the motivation of other students. As one student stopped taking notes other students followed. One student began checking her cell phone and other students followed.
After the vocabulary words were written on the board the students were slightly engaged in a pronunciation exercise during which they simply repeated words after the instructor. The slight rise in attention is attributable to the students being asked to speak. Perhaps this attention could have been increased more if the instructor gave feedback on pronunciation throughout the exercise. Feedback is essential to motivation according to theorist David McClelland.
2
Next, a video was played that explained the process of global warming and student attention waded once again.
Some students weren’t even able to see the screen because of an intense glare, yet these students said nothing. After this point the instructor did ask questions of the students however answered her own questions before the students were given a chance to contribute. Student involvement was not encouraged which caused their attention to fall further. A student did manage to ask if the window could be closed, however. The instructor then distributed a stack of stapled papers that she called “a packet” and described as containing the day’s activities. The professor then instructed the students to begin working on the activities as she took a seat behind her desk. The students seemed to stare at the pages blankly and some began to work individually. This persisted for about five minutes and to the students who seemed to work faster than the others she gave an additional handout, a story about a current U.S. event. Students were then called on to read the text aloud. Both, the individual reading and the reading aloud seemed to increase student attention. This stimulation seemed attributable to the fact that the story was about something that happened in the United States. The students’ motivation was enhanced not by encouragement from the teacher but instead by the fact that the article was interesting to them, a result consistent with the work of cognitive development theorist, Lev
Vygotsky who believed that student motivation can be enhanced from selecting problems that are interesting to the students.
3 Being asked to read aloud also stimulated the students. The professor also moved closer to the students as they read which seemed to elicit their attention even more. Attention remained elevated for about 10 minutes. Once the reading was over the professor then asked comprehension questions relative to the text and surprisingly the student responses seemed to be unenthusiastic when given at all. This reduction in student enthusiasm during the question answer period may have been attributable to a lack of relevance of the questions to the text. To the students who did answer questions the professor gave “good job” compliments regardless of the quality of the answers. The intent of the instructor in giving these compliments may have been to encourage the students as a way to enhance their selfefficacies as suggested by learning theorist, Albert Bandura.
4 However, the way in which this encouragement was
1 Businessballs.com (1940) Abraham Maslow – Hierarchy of needs and diagrams of Maslow’s motivational theory – pyramid diagrams of Maslow’s theory. [online] Available at: http://www.businessballs.com/maslow.htm
2 Businessballs.com (1941) David McClelland – Achievement motivation needs theory – [online] Available at: http://www.businessballs.com/davidmcclelland.htm
3 Instructionaldesign.org (1962) Lev Vygotsky – Social development theory. [online] Available at: http://www.instructionaldesign.com/theories/social-development.html
4 Instructionaldesign.org (1973) Albert Bandura – Social learning theory. [online] Available at: http://www.instructionaldesign.com/theories/social-learning.html

24/09/2013 MOTIVATION ESSAY Kimberly Brown delivered sounded closer to patronizing and was unbelievable. As motivational theorist David McClelland pointed out, feedback is an essential means by which to measure success but if not reliable it is not an effective motivator.
As the lesson progressed the instructor kept asking “Do you understand?”, “Does that make a little more sense?”, and “Would this be easier?” which could’ve been intended to serve the esteem needs of the students but instead seemed to undermine their intelligence. This concluded because of the fact that in the beginning of the class many of the students demonstrated that they not only knew some English vocabulary but also had a moderately deep knowledge of the Global Warming concept. In conclusion, on average the motivation of the students was low throughout this course.
1.
Businessballs.com (1940) Abraham Maslow – Hierarchy of needs and diagrams of Maslow’s motivational theory – pyramid diagrams of Maslow’s theory. [online] Available at: http://www.businessballs.com/maslow.htm
2.
Businessballs.com (1941) David McClelland – Achievement motivation needs theory – [online] Available at: http://www.businessballs.com/davidmcclelland.htm
3.
Instructionaldesign.org (1962) Lev Vygotsky – Social development theory. [online] Available at: http://www.instructionaldesign.com/theories/social-development.html
4.
Instructionaldesign.org (1973) Albert Bandura – Social learning theory. [online] Available at: http://www.instructionaldesign.com/theories/social-learning.html