Findings
Chapter 1
Overview of Project
Over the past semester my students worked on an inquiry museum exhibit project. The goal was to create an inquiry based exhibit that would eventually be tested on the floor of the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center in Balboa Park here in San Diego. Inquiry based exhibits, like those found at the world renowned Exploratorium in San Francisco, are unlike the traditional exhibits found in many science museums. The usual hands-on exhibit presents a phenomenon for the visitor to experience, and then describes what’s going on in the signage around the exhibit. The phenomenon is usually striking, but other than the initial experience, the exhibit doesn’t allow for any further interaction. An example might be a Van De Graff generator; those metallic half domes that make your hair stand on end. The phenomenon is immediately appealing, but after the initial thrill of seeing your friends with their hair standing on end is over, there isn’t much for the average museum goer to do with the exhibit and they often move on. The worst offenders are exhibits where you push a button and areas light up to tell you more information about something. In contrast, inquiry based exhibits are exploratory, they allow for visitors to generate their own investigable questions and test out their hypotheses. The best exhibits allow for multiple users at once so that conversations can begin, and visitors can engage themselves and one another in an authentic inquiry exploration of the phenomenon at hand. An excellent example of an inquiry based exhibit found in many science museums includes a turntable with discs of different sizes, widths, and masses that can be set rolling on the rotating surface. Visitors devise numerous questions to explore and often spend significantly longer at such exhibits and partake in richer “I wonder…” conversations with other visitors engaged in the same activity than at traditional non-inquiry museum exhibits.
For this project I partnered with Erik Smith, Chief Exhibit Engineer at the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center here in San Diego. Erik was a wonderful industry expert and participated in three rounds of exhibit feedback throughout the student design and build process.
A rough overview of the curriculum steps follows. Please see Appendix B for a detailed curriculum outlining the different stages of the project.
Brief overview of the museum exhibit project and associated scaffolding:
Overview of Project
Over the past semester my students worked on an inquiry museum exhibit project. The goal was to create an inquiry based exhibit that would eventually be tested on the floor of the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center in Balboa Park here in San Diego. Inquiry based exhibits, like those found at the world renowned Exploratorium in San Francisco, are unlike the traditional exhibits found in many science museums. The usual hands-on exhibit presents a phenomenon for the visitor to experience, and then describes what’s going on in the signage around the exhibit. The phenomenon is usually striking, but other than the initial experience, the exhibit doesn’t allow for any further interaction. An example might be a Van De Graff generator; those metallic half domes that make your hair stand on end. The phenomenon is immediately appealing, but after the initial thrill of seeing your friends with their hair standing on end is over, there isn’t much for the average museum goer to do with the exhibit and they often move on. The worst offenders are exhibits where you push a button and areas light up to tell you more information about something. In contrast, inquiry based exhibits are exploratory, they allow for visitors to generate their own investigable questions and test out their hypotheses. The best exhibits allow for multiple users at once so that conversations can begin, and visitors can engage themselves and one another in an authentic inquiry exploration of the phenomenon at hand. An excellent example of an inquiry based exhibit found in many science museums includes a turntable with discs of different sizes, widths, and masses that can be set rolling on the rotating surface. Visitors devise numerous questions to explore and often spend significantly longer at such exhibits and partake in richer “I wonder…” conversations with other visitors engaged in the same activity than at traditional non-inquiry museum exhibits.
For this project I partnered with Erik Smith, Chief Exhibit Engineer at the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center here in San Diego. Erik was a wonderful industry expert and participated in three rounds of exhibit feedback throughout the student design and build process.
A rough overview of the curriculum steps follows. Please see Appendix B for a detailed curriculum outlining the different stages of the project.
Brief overview of the museum exhibit project and associated scaffolding:
- Students participated in a sticky note brainstorming session about phenomena that intrigued them.
2. Students, grouped in threes selected a phenomenon to explore.
3. Students wrote up a procedure to test some aspect of their phenomenon of interest.
4. Students engaged in exploring their phenomenon.
5. Students wrote up their explorations in a lab report format.
3. Students wrote up a procedure to test some aspect of their phenomenon of interest.
4. Students engaged in exploring their phenomenon.
5. Students wrote up their explorations in a lab report format.
6. Students drew rough plans for an inquiry exhibit focused around their scientific phenomenon and presented them to Erik Smith, the chief exhibit engineer from the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center.
7. Based on feedback, students revised their plans and then developed a proof of concept model of their exhibit. A proof of concept model is made from cheap, easily obtainable materials such as cardboard, duct tape etc… and is used to demonstrate that what you plan to do actually works
8. Once their phenomenon worked with the cheap materials, students created plans for a prototype build and delved more deeply into researching their phenomena.
7. Based on feedback, students revised their plans and then developed a proof of concept model of their exhibit. A proof of concept model is made from cheap, easily obtainable materials such as cardboard, duct tape etc… and is used to demonstrate that what you plan to do actually works
8. Once their phenomenon worked with the cheap materials, students created plans for a prototype build and delved more deeply into researching their phenomena.
9. Prototypes were made of more robust materials, such as plywood and had working circuits or parts.
10. Students presented their prototypes to Erik for feedback and made adjustments to their build plans for their final build.
11. Students created scale build plans for their final build, addressing any issues they found with their prototype.
10. Students presented their prototypes to Erik for feedback and made adjustments to their build plans for their final build.
11. Students created scale build plans for their final build, addressing any issues they found with their prototype.
12. Students then built their final museum exhibits.
13. Middle school students then tried out the exhibits as a final test before any last modifications before hitting the museum floor.
Prior to my action research I completed the project with a previous group of students, so this was a chance to address some of the challenges I encountered the first time around. One of the most significant challenges the first group of students faced was low motivation. The project extends over two and a half months, it requires tremendous thought, revision, and persistence; even with significant scaffolding and check in points it was no wonder that students felt overwhelmed. However, I also recognized that thought, revision and persistence were exactly the skills that I wanted my students to develop. This led me to revise my action research focus (the first time of many) to include motivation and grit.
I also revised my scaffolding to further support some of the more difficult parts of the project. I spent a longer time on the beginning inquiry stage and had students make extensive use of their journals to keep track of progress, thoughts and plans as the project progressed.
With that background, shall we meet our co-stars and begin our journey?
13. Middle school students then tried out the exhibits as a final test before any last modifications before hitting the museum floor.
Prior to my action research I completed the project with a previous group of students, so this was a chance to address some of the challenges I encountered the first time around. One of the most significant challenges the first group of students faced was low motivation. The project extends over two and a half months, it requires tremendous thought, revision, and persistence; even with significant scaffolding and check in points it was no wonder that students felt overwhelmed. However, I also recognized that thought, revision and persistence were exactly the skills that I wanted my students to develop. This led me to revise my action research focus (the first time of many) to include motivation and grit.
I also revised my scaffolding to further support some of the more difficult parts of the project. I spent a longer time on the beginning inquiry stage and had students make extensive use of their journals to keep track of progress, thoughts and plans as the project progressed.
With that background, shall we meet our co-stars and begin our journey?
Chapter 2
Grit & Motivation
The first thing I did in the beginning of the semester was have all the students take Angela Duckworth’s 5 point grit scale questionnaire (see Appendix A).
I arbitrarily divided up the grit scores into ranges to make them easier to select focus students. Those that had results less than 3.00 were considered the low grit group. Those with results of 4.00 or above were considered the high grit group, and the remainder were considered the mid grit group which was further divided into the low-mid grit group and the high-mid grit group. Of course these categories are not conclusive, nor necessarily accurate. Students fill out surveys very differently depending on perception, mood that day and other factors. It would take many more students to give us an overall impression of grit and how it relates to academic perseverance, which would not necessarily be reflective of students as individuals. For example, in the studies where Angela Duckworth tracked future success in relation to grit score, she tracked hundreds of students and found that there was a significant correlation between those with higher grit scores and those that experienced academic success. Individual students were not looked at because such a limited data set would be considered statistically irrelevant. As such, individual students in the data sample may have scored very differently depending on how they perceived the questions and when looked at on an individual basis, conclusions about overall grittiness can’t be accurately determined. That being said, overall I had a pretty gritty class. Their combined average grit score was 3.39. In Angela Duckworth’s paper Self-Discipline Outdoes IQ in Predicting Academic Performance of Adolescents for two groups of eighth graders of 140 and 164 students, the mean self reported grit score was 3.10 and 3.26 respectively. My students are tenth graders, which may contribute to the difference, or perhaps the design principles of HTH are having the intended effect and helping create gritty lifelong learners. (A teacher can always hope!)
I selected six initial focus students based on the grit scores above as well as classroom observations to participate in a panel discussion. A boy and a girl who self identified high on the grit scale (scores of 4.00 or higher), a boy and a girl who self identified as medium on the grit scale (scores between 3.01 and 3.99), and two boys who self identified as low on the grit scale (scores under 3.00). It is important to emphasize that the grit scores were arbitrarily broken into high/medium/low categories and that there is no ‘definitive’ measure of grit, only relative values. I wanted to understand what these student groups found motivating.
Initial Focus Students
0.00 - 3.00 on Grit Scale
John: I selected John because he self assessed at 3.00 on the grit scale, just on the cusp of low and medium for my class, yet he was obviously academically adept at grasping concepts. In class he exhibited low motivation for tasks he felt served little purpose, however, he soon realized that in my class, there were no such tasks. Everything built on everything else. John told me early on that he gets A’s and he usually doesn’t have to work for them. I have to admit, I remember myself as a sophomore and I had similar views. John is the quintessential example of intelligence derailing motivation.
Scott: Similar to John, this young man is academically adept, however, he ranks himself low on the grit scale and struggles with motivation for things he finds challenging. His mother approached me on back to school night and implored, “He needs to be challenged, he is very intelligent, but he won’t seek it out himself.”
3.00 - 3.49 on Grit Scale
Brandon: This student is academically adept at grasping complex concepts, and has modest motivation levels. He too, like the previous boys is very reluctant to do work he sees little purpose in.
Yvette: Yvette is very earnest, and definitely wants to succeed. Academics do not come as easily to her as to the previous students, and she takes every opportunity to seek help with her studies.
4.00 – 5.00 on Grit Scale
Maggie: At first glance, she does not fit the stereotype of the goal oriented person. She has a distinct set of priorities uniquely her own. I chose her because she ranked high on the grit scale, and when she latched onto her topic for her experiment, analyzing the effect of copper ions on the fresh water flea, Daphnia, she threw herself at the process with an intensity I have yet to see exhibited by a tenth grader. She loves the ocean and anything even remotely related to it. Her passion to explore is intrinsic.
Anthony: He exhibits a clear and keen desire to understand everything he encounters, and seems to be driven by a strong motivation to learn and explore. To me, Anthony embodies the quintessential high grit student, motivated, keen, and hard working. I was curious to determine if his motivation stemmed from grades or more internal factors.
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Initial Thoughts on Inquiry, Grit & Motivation: Emergence of Themes
Our forty minute panel discussion focused on two main questions.
Question 1: What is inquiry and how do you know you know something?
As far as inquiry goes, the students seemed to have a general understanding of what inquiry was, but lacked detail in their descriptions. They cognitively knew that it meant to ask questions and explore something, but a solid understanding of the steps involved and how to apply them was missing.
Maggie: “What I really like about it {the inquiry process} is the fact that not everything in the world is put in a textbook and there is not always an answer, and there is like so much still out there to discover even after we’ve been here for a million years. You need… I don’t know, you have to kind of like, care, you can’t like… I don’t know how to explain it, you have to want to discover things.”
I loved this quote. I think it gets right to the heart of both inquiry and grit. If you care about learning and exploring you are more willing to persevere if something is cognitively challenging. I also really liked how she already understands that there are still huge areas of the natural world that are available for exploration. Our knowledge is not entirely fixed and already in a textbook, but growing and expanding daily as interested individuals explore the world around them.
The students had great answers that covered the spectrum when responding to the ‘how do you know you know something?’ part of the question, however their answers skirted around an actual description of the inquiry steps.
John: “I feel like I know something if I can explain it. If I have an explanation for how something works then I feel like I know it. And for other things, like atoms, I guess I just generally trust people who tell me things.”
John seemed to be getting at the idea of how hypotheses can be used as tools to explain phenomena, and when backed up by evidence they become our working schema for explaining how things work. However, his description is described in experiential terms rather than couched in inquiry language.
Scott: “Seeing is believing, then there are many things that you really can’t see, like atoms and all that… I guess we never really know everything, I guess we can assume things, and most of the time it’s true, but technically there is never a 100% way to know something.”
In addition to discussing how he knows something, Scott is also addressing the idea of scientific theories, how evidence can support a particular view even if it can never be proved in totality. Once a theory amasses a significant amount of evidence, however, it is assumed to be the correct explanation.
Brandon: “When it works mathematically or a certain way every time.”
Brandon touches on a similar idea, the accumulation of evidence or a predictive model of how something works.
Anthony: “If I can understand it and make it work in a practical way, in like a physical way – that’s how I can understand things. And then once you understand you can grow and learn and make things more efficient. I’m a very hands on learner and so I guess that’s the way I really know things, just by doing it myself.”
Anthony discusses learning from a more hands on engineering perspective. Exploring how something works in a practical sense. This can be through experimentation, or the inquiry process related to solving engineering problems.
Maggie: “I like reading books and then going out and trying to figure it out myself. I like knowing what causes it, or like a lot of times I will go to the beach and find something weird and then go home and look it up. I have a ton of books.”
Maggie discusses understanding through research, another valuable inquiry skill utilized by scientists to share information and move the field forward.
All the students discussed aspects of the inquiry process in their responses to how they feel they know something, yet none of them used inquiry related vocabulary. However, their responses clearly showed a gut understanding of the inquiry process skills that are used by scientists to explore and explain the world around us. Personally I found this innate understanding of inquiry both heartening and fascinating. They had the initial layers of understanding before concepts and vocabulary are refined by more experience or schooling.
Question 2: How do you get through something tough?
The next questions explored how students tackled something that was hard. I was interested in what they found motivating.
John: “When you’re running, you look at the person in front of you. {They are} faster... so you want to get faster than them, so you try.”
Scott: “I like soccer and polo… I want to be put in a game and score goals, which motivates me so I won’t quit when I get tired, because I have that drive to achieve something that will make me happy.”
Brandon: “For me, I think like, someone else is training right now, so I should train so if I meet them in a race I will be equal or better than them.”
Yvette: “Well, sometimes I like to try, but when I can’t try anymore I just quit basically. Sometimes things are too hard so I just try to get help. I like playing soccer, I just like being with my friends, my friends play too.”
The first responses seemed to focus mainly on external motivators such as competition or friends. I noticed that these types of responses came from the students from my lower and mid grit groups.
Anthony: “For school I want to get good grades so I can have opportunities later in my life.”
Maggie: “I want to do marine biology. Every project I get I somehow twist it to be about that because that is the only way I’ll probably even do it.”
My high grit students mentioned motivators that related to their sense of self, either for future options or for their happiness.
Emergence of Motivation
Something I found fascinating from the panel discussions related to grit was the underlying motivational factors for each group of students. Those that ranked low or medium on the grit scale mentioned predominantly outside factors for motivation – competition and social reasons. Those that scored high on the grit scale mentioned more autonomous or intrinsic reasons: curiosity, passion, and ensuring long-term options (delayed gratification). This got me wondering whether there was a link between internal motivation and grit.
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The Intrinsic Vs. Extrinsic Showdown: Exploring Student Perceptions on Motivation
To analyze whether students with higher grit scores had higher levels of intrinsic motivation I had students brainstorm a class list of things that motivated them. We collectively grouped them into ‘intrinsic’ and ‘extrinsic’ categories. Then the students responded to the following journal prompt: Looking at our list of extrinsic and intrinsic motivators which do you think have been most influential for you over the past week? Month? Your life?
The results were shocking.
After reading the journal entries, I realized that every single student except one had listed external motivators as the most common form of motivation influencing them. However, I felt like some of the extrinsic motivators were ‘better’ than other extrinsic factors. One student claimed that her biggest motivator over the past week was to “get really good grades and be able to go to a good college and become a dentist to help kids who don’t get the best dental care.” This is not intrinsic motivation in the pure sense, motivation to learn for the sake of learning, but as extrinsic factors go, it’s pretty darn noble.
It became obvious that I needed to either create a more nuanced scale of intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation or find one already developed that fit my needs. After a week of mulling over whether I should create one of my own, I finally sat down and found what I was looking for. Research conducted by Vallerand, Deci & Ryan in the early 1990’s broke motivation down into three main categories: intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, and amotivation. The first two categories are further broken down into subcategories.
A brief overview of each follows:
Intrinsic motivation–to know
This form of intrinsic motivation is based on the epistemic need to know and understand, the human drive to search for meaning. Intrinsic motivation – to know is when you perform an activity for the sheer joy experienced while learning, exploring, or trying to understand something new.
Intrinsic motivation–to accomplish
Defined as engaging in an activity for the pleasure and satisfaction experienced when you create something. For me, this is embodied by artists of all types.
Intrinsic motivation–to experience
When you engage in a behavior for the experience. Participating in stimulating discussions, visiting art galleries to experience aesthetically intriguing or intellectually challenging work, or just plain fun and excitement like roller coasters and white water rafting!
The next three categories break down extrinsic motivation into a continuum from more self-determined or autonomous forms to less self-determined forms. Deci et. al. (1992) describes the importance of this distinction rather elegantly in the following quote:
"When a behavior is self-determined, that regulatory process is choice, but when it is controlled by an extrnal factor the regulatory process is compliance (or in some cases defiance.)"
The more autonomous forms of extrinsic motivation are seen to be steps along the path towards full internalization of the motivator as part of the identification of self. As we grow and mature, our motivation moves from external to ourselves, to internal.
Extrinsic motivation–identified regulation
An example would be a student who willingly does extra work in chemistry because they believe it is important for their continued success in the subject. The motivation is extrinsic, because it is performed in order to meet an established goal rather than because it is interesting in and of itself. However, because the action was done willingly and for personal reasons, this form of external motivation is more autonomous and self-determined. The student values studying and has internalized the regulatory process to a greater degree than in the other forms of extrinsic motivation that follow.
Extrinsic motivation–introjected regulation
This represents behavior that is exhibited in response to internalized rules or demands, for example, a student who gets to class on time to avoid feeling like a bad person. The student is participating in the activity to avoid feelings of guilt, not because punctuality has been integrated into the self. This form of motivation is a form of internal coercion and more closely resembles external control rather than the true choice of self-determination.
Extrinsic motivation–external regulation
This form of external motivation is the farthest away from self-determined. This is the student who does an assignment for the teacher’s praise or to avoid having their video games taken away at home. The reason for doing the behavior lies completely outside the individual.
The final category of motivation is amotivation.
Amotivation
People experience amotivation when they feel that there is no link between their efforts and the desired outcome. They feel incompetent and that outcomes are not in their control.
There is one additional category of external motivation, external motivation–integrated regulation[1], that the authors discuss, but since it wasn’t included in the questionnaire and primarily only shows up in adults I’m not going to focus on it in my analysis of the students.
[1] External motivation–integrated regulation
Deci et. al state: “This is the most developmentally advanced form of extrinsic motivation. …. This is when behavior is an expression of who the individual is - of what is valued by and important to the individual. Behaviors regulated by integrated processes are fully self-determined and appear primarily in the adult stages of development. Integrated regulation bears some relation to intrinsic motivation because both are forms of autonomous self-regulation. Accordingly, the qualities that are associated with intrinsically motivated behavior, such as behaving willingly, being creative, and displaying conceptual or intuitive understanding – can be used as objective markers of the extent to which an extrinsic regulation has become fully integrated. However, intrinsic motivation and integrated regulation are different. Intrinsic motivation is characterized by interest in the activity itself, whereas integrated regulation is characterized by the activity’s being personally important for a valued outcome.”
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A Closer Look at the Student Journal Responses: Emergence of Curriculum Design Principles
This scale helped significantly in viewing student journal responses as a continuum of autonomous motivational factors. In response to the journal prompt: What motivates you? What have you found motivating this week? Over the past month? Over your life? I received a number of interesting results. One student that ranked high on the more autonomous end of motivating factors wrote:
"Over the past year I think I was usually motivated by personal goals, determination, sense of accomplishment and pleasing others."
On the opposite end of the spectrum, I read totally heartbreaking responses like the quote below from another student:
"The one significant thing that happened this past month was that I had my first Student Led Conference {like a parent teacher conference, except run by the student} where it went good. So I realized it was better than being constantly yelled at by my parents. My top three motivators are the belt, women, and partying."
As I continued to read journal entries I noticed that certain themes emerged. Specifically, ideas of mastery, relevance, and autonomy. These three ideas contribute to individual motivation in three distinct ways. Mastery is the belief that you can excel at something. If you believe you can get better at a particular skill you tend to stick with it. Skills or tasks that you believe are relevant, such as those connected to an interest or passion, are also easier to tackle than something you find pointless or boring. Finally, the more control you have over the process and how it gets done, the higher the level of motivation for the task (Pink, 2011).
Focus Student Journal Responses
John: “Over the last month I was motivated to run faster because Brandon was beating me.”
John: “In my life winning, money, and not having my mom take my computer away are motivating.”
John was from my low grit score group and listed mainly external factors for his motivation. However, he obviously valued autonomy such as having access to his computer, which you could argue provides a certain sense of freedom for a teenager.
Scott: “In my entire life my top three motivators are: happiness, surfing and grades.”
Scott: “Over the past month the moment I was most motivated was when I was surfing. I really wanted to get shacked. I came really close too! I was motivated to experience the feeling of ecstasy as the wave curls over your head while you are crouching on your board.”
Scott was also from the low grit group, however, his description of surfing, had significant elements of a desire to master something he felt passionate about.
Brandon: “When my grades were dropping my mom motivated me by telling me if I didn’t bring my grades up she would pull me off the cross country running team and that motivated me to get my grades up.”
Brandon: “Running is constantly my motivator, because it is my favorite passion.”
Brandon was from the mid grit score group. He also mentioned feeling passionate about an activity. While he didn’t mention in this journal article that he felt compelled to master running, he does mention that it is integral to his happiness. It is relevant to who he is.
Yvette: “I have to motivate myself to go to practice, but I go because I love soccer. I can be doing other things instead of practicing, but I choose to go to practice, because I want to try and get better.”
Yvette also mentions mastery as a motivator.
Anthony: “For just over a year now I have become a major part of the crew of Amazing Grace Tall Ship. Every sail I am motivated to learn from my mistakes and grow as a person. I can see how tall ship sailing has affected my life and want everyone who comes on board to have a similar experience.”
Anthony: “In the last few weeks I have been motivated to make our exhibit look good and work to the best ability. I wanted to work with my group to create a superior exhibit. We used the laser cutter to make sure it was perfect. I was motivated to get a good grade and to get the exhibit to meet my standards.”
Mastery shows up once again in both of these quotes from Anthony, one relating to his passion for sailing, the other related to his exhibit project. Anthony scored high on the grit scale.
Across all grit levels mastery and relevance were common themes for motivation. If a student was interested or passionate about the activity, they had a strong desire to get better at it. Interestingly the only time autonomy cropped up was with John. As someone who catches on very quickly to new ideas and concepts I wonder if his desire for autonomy comes from having to function at a slower pace in his school or home environment.
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The Academic Motivation Scale
In addition to the categorization of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, Deci et. al. developed the Academic Motivation Scale, a questionnaire to determine what types of motivation causes students to go to school (see Appendix A).
The questionnaire includes all seven categories of motivation: intrinsic–to know, intrinsic–to experience, intrinsic–to accomplish, extrinsic–identity, extrinsic–introjected, extrinsic–external regulation and amotivation. Each category is given a score out of 5. The class data was dense, but some interesting themes came to light.
Extrinsic Motivators Were High Across Students
One of the themes from the class data was that the journal entries were indeed corroborated. My students were motivated to a large extent by external factors. A certain level of amotivation showed up across the class, and intrinsic factors, while less than extrinsic ones were still present for everyone to a significant degree.
Shift Towards More Autonomous Forms of Motivation
The most significant thing I noticed was that every student who had a grit score of 3.00 or below self-assessed that external motivating factors were significantly more motivating than internal factors, and in every case external motivation–external regulation was the highest bar on their graph as opposed to more autonomous forms of external motivation such as external motivation–identity or any of the internal motivators. The journal entries of the focus students seem to follow this general trend as well.
I selected six initial focus students based on the grit scores above as well as classroom observations to participate in a panel discussion. A boy and a girl who self identified high on the grit scale (scores of 4.00 or higher), a boy and a girl who self identified as medium on the grit scale (scores between 3.01 and 3.99), and two boys who self identified as low on the grit scale (scores under 3.00). It is important to emphasize that the grit scores were arbitrarily broken into high/medium/low categories and that there is no ‘definitive’ measure of grit, only relative values. I wanted to understand what these student groups found motivating.
Initial Focus Students
0.00 - 3.00 on Grit Scale
John: I selected John because he self assessed at 3.00 on the grit scale, just on the cusp of low and medium for my class, yet he was obviously academically adept at grasping concepts. In class he exhibited low motivation for tasks he felt served little purpose, however, he soon realized that in my class, there were no such tasks. Everything built on everything else. John told me early on that he gets A’s and he usually doesn’t have to work for them. I have to admit, I remember myself as a sophomore and I had similar views. John is the quintessential example of intelligence derailing motivation.
Scott: Similar to John, this young man is academically adept, however, he ranks himself low on the grit scale and struggles with motivation for things he finds challenging. His mother approached me on back to school night and implored, “He needs to be challenged, he is very intelligent, but he won’t seek it out himself.”
3.00 - 3.49 on Grit Scale
Brandon: This student is academically adept at grasping complex concepts, and has modest motivation levels. He too, like the previous boys is very reluctant to do work he sees little purpose in.
Yvette: Yvette is very earnest, and definitely wants to succeed. Academics do not come as easily to her as to the previous students, and she takes every opportunity to seek help with her studies.
4.00 – 5.00 on Grit Scale
Maggie: At first glance, she does not fit the stereotype of the goal oriented person. She has a distinct set of priorities uniquely her own. I chose her because she ranked high on the grit scale, and when she latched onto her topic for her experiment, analyzing the effect of copper ions on the fresh water flea, Daphnia, she threw herself at the process with an intensity I have yet to see exhibited by a tenth grader. She loves the ocean and anything even remotely related to it. Her passion to explore is intrinsic.
Anthony: He exhibits a clear and keen desire to understand everything he encounters, and seems to be driven by a strong motivation to learn and explore. To me, Anthony embodies the quintessential high grit student, motivated, keen, and hard working. I was curious to determine if his motivation stemmed from grades or more internal factors.
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Initial Thoughts on Inquiry, Grit & Motivation: Emergence of Themes
Our forty minute panel discussion focused on two main questions.
Question 1: What is inquiry and how do you know you know something?
As far as inquiry goes, the students seemed to have a general understanding of what inquiry was, but lacked detail in their descriptions. They cognitively knew that it meant to ask questions and explore something, but a solid understanding of the steps involved and how to apply them was missing.
Maggie: “What I really like about it {the inquiry process} is the fact that not everything in the world is put in a textbook and there is not always an answer, and there is like so much still out there to discover even after we’ve been here for a million years. You need… I don’t know, you have to kind of like, care, you can’t like… I don’t know how to explain it, you have to want to discover things.”
I loved this quote. I think it gets right to the heart of both inquiry and grit. If you care about learning and exploring you are more willing to persevere if something is cognitively challenging. I also really liked how she already understands that there are still huge areas of the natural world that are available for exploration. Our knowledge is not entirely fixed and already in a textbook, but growing and expanding daily as interested individuals explore the world around them.
The students had great answers that covered the spectrum when responding to the ‘how do you know you know something?’ part of the question, however their answers skirted around an actual description of the inquiry steps.
John: “I feel like I know something if I can explain it. If I have an explanation for how something works then I feel like I know it. And for other things, like atoms, I guess I just generally trust people who tell me things.”
John seemed to be getting at the idea of how hypotheses can be used as tools to explain phenomena, and when backed up by evidence they become our working schema for explaining how things work. However, his description is described in experiential terms rather than couched in inquiry language.
Scott: “Seeing is believing, then there are many things that you really can’t see, like atoms and all that… I guess we never really know everything, I guess we can assume things, and most of the time it’s true, but technically there is never a 100% way to know something.”
In addition to discussing how he knows something, Scott is also addressing the idea of scientific theories, how evidence can support a particular view even if it can never be proved in totality. Once a theory amasses a significant amount of evidence, however, it is assumed to be the correct explanation.
Brandon: “When it works mathematically or a certain way every time.”
Brandon touches on a similar idea, the accumulation of evidence or a predictive model of how something works.
Anthony: “If I can understand it and make it work in a practical way, in like a physical way – that’s how I can understand things. And then once you understand you can grow and learn and make things more efficient. I’m a very hands on learner and so I guess that’s the way I really know things, just by doing it myself.”
Anthony discusses learning from a more hands on engineering perspective. Exploring how something works in a practical sense. This can be through experimentation, or the inquiry process related to solving engineering problems.
Maggie: “I like reading books and then going out and trying to figure it out myself. I like knowing what causes it, or like a lot of times I will go to the beach and find something weird and then go home and look it up. I have a ton of books.”
Maggie discusses understanding through research, another valuable inquiry skill utilized by scientists to share information and move the field forward.
All the students discussed aspects of the inquiry process in their responses to how they feel they know something, yet none of them used inquiry related vocabulary. However, their responses clearly showed a gut understanding of the inquiry process skills that are used by scientists to explore and explain the world around us. Personally I found this innate understanding of inquiry both heartening and fascinating. They had the initial layers of understanding before concepts and vocabulary are refined by more experience or schooling.
Question 2: How do you get through something tough?
The next questions explored how students tackled something that was hard. I was interested in what they found motivating.
John: “When you’re running, you look at the person in front of you. {They are} faster... so you want to get faster than them, so you try.”
Scott: “I like soccer and polo… I want to be put in a game and score goals, which motivates me so I won’t quit when I get tired, because I have that drive to achieve something that will make me happy.”
Brandon: “For me, I think like, someone else is training right now, so I should train so if I meet them in a race I will be equal or better than them.”
Yvette: “Well, sometimes I like to try, but when I can’t try anymore I just quit basically. Sometimes things are too hard so I just try to get help. I like playing soccer, I just like being with my friends, my friends play too.”
The first responses seemed to focus mainly on external motivators such as competition or friends. I noticed that these types of responses came from the students from my lower and mid grit groups.
Anthony: “For school I want to get good grades so I can have opportunities later in my life.”
Maggie: “I want to do marine biology. Every project I get I somehow twist it to be about that because that is the only way I’ll probably even do it.”
My high grit students mentioned motivators that related to their sense of self, either for future options or for their happiness.
Emergence of Motivation
Something I found fascinating from the panel discussions related to grit was the underlying motivational factors for each group of students. Those that ranked low or medium on the grit scale mentioned predominantly outside factors for motivation – competition and social reasons. Those that scored high on the grit scale mentioned more autonomous or intrinsic reasons: curiosity, passion, and ensuring long-term options (delayed gratification). This got me wondering whether there was a link between internal motivation and grit.
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The Intrinsic Vs. Extrinsic Showdown: Exploring Student Perceptions on Motivation
To analyze whether students with higher grit scores had higher levels of intrinsic motivation I had students brainstorm a class list of things that motivated them. We collectively grouped them into ‘intrinsic’ and ‘extrinsic’ categories. Then the students responded to the following journal prompt: Looking at our list of extrinsic and intrinsic motivators which do you think have been most influential for you over the past week? Month? Your life?
The results were shocking.
After reading the journal entries, I realized that every single student except one had listed external motivators as the most common form of motivation influencing them. However, I felt like some of the extrinsic motivators were ‘better’ than other extrinsic factors. One student claimed that her biggest motivator over the past week was to “get really good grades and be able to go to a good college and become a dentist to help kids who don’t get the best dental care.” This is not intrinsic motivation in the pure sense, motivation to learn for the sake of learning, but as extrinsic factors go, it’s pretty darn noble.
It became obvious that I needed to either create a more nuanced scale of intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation or find one already developed that fit my needs. After a week of mulling over whether I should create one of my own, I finally sat down and found what I was looking for. Research conducted by Vallerand, Deci & Ryan in the early 1990’s broke motivation down into three main categories: intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, and amotivation. The first two categories are further broken down into subcategories.
A brief overview of each follows:
Intrinsic motivation–to know
This form of intrinsic motivation is based on the epistemic need to know and understand, the human drive to search for meaning. Intrinsic motivation – to know is when you perform an activity for the sheer joy experienced while learning, exploring, or trying to understand something new.
Intrinsic motivation–to accomplish
Defined as engaging in an activity for the pleasure and satisfaction experienced when you create something. For me, this is embodied by artists of all types.
Intrinsic motivation–to experience
When you engage in a behavior for the experience. Participating in stimulating discussions, visiting art galleries to experience aesthetically intriguing or intellectually challenging work, or just plain fun and excitement like roller coasters and white water rafting!
The next three categories break down extrinsic motivation into a continuum from more self-determined or autonomous forms to less self-determined forms. Deci et. al. (1992) describes the importance of this distinction rather elegantly in the following quote:
"When a behavior is self-determined, that regulatory process is choice, but when it is controlled by an extrnal factor the regulatory process is compliance (or in some cases defiance.)"
The more autonomous forms of extrinsic motivation are seen to be steps along the path towards full internalization of the motivator as part of the identification of self. As we grow and mature, our motivation moves from external to ourselves, to internal.
Extrinsic motivation–identified regulation
An example would be a student who willingly does extra work in chemistry because they believe it is important for their continued success in the subject. The motivation is extrinsic, because it is performed in order to meet an established goal rather than because it is interesting in and of itself. However, because the action was done willingly and for personal reasons, this form of external motivation is more autonomous and self-determined. The student values studying and has internalized the regulatory process to a greater degree than in the other forms of extrinsic motivation that follow.
Extrinsic motivation–introjected regulation
This represents behavior that is exhibited in response to internalized rules or demands, for example, a student who gets to class on time to avoid feeling like a bad person. The student is participating in the activity to avoid feelings of guilt, not because punctuality has been integrated into the self. This form of motivation is a form of internal coercion and more closely resembles external control rather than the true choice of self-determination.
Extrinsic motivation–external regulation
This form of external motivation is the farthest away from self-determined. This is the student who does an assignment for the teacher’s praise or to avoid having their video games taken away at home. The reason for doing the behavior lies completely outside the individual.
The final category of motivation is amotivation.
Amotivation
People experience amotivation when they feel that there is no link between their efforts and the desired outcome. They feel incompetent and that outcomes are not in their control.
There is one additional category of external motivation, external motivation–integrated regulation[1], that the authors discuss, but since it wasn’t included in the questionnaire and primarily only shows up in adults I’m not going to focus on it in my analysis of the students.
[1] External motivation–integrated regulation
Deci et. al state: “This is the most developmentally advanced form of extrinsic motivation. …. This is when behavior is an expression of who the individual is - of what is valued by and important to the individual. Behaviors regulated by integrated processes are fully self-determined and appear primarily in the adult stages of development. Integrated regulation bears some relation to intrinsic motivation because both are forms of autonomous self-regulation. Accordingly, the qualities that are associated with intrinsically motivated behavior, such as behaving willingly, being creative, and displaying conceptual or intuitive understanding – can be used as objective markers of the extent to which an extrinsic regulation has become fully integrated. However, intrinsic motivation and integrated regulation are different. Intrinsic motivation is characterized by interest in the activity itself, whereas integrated regulation is characterized by the activity’s being personally important for a valued outcome.”
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A Closer Look at the Student Journal Responses: Emergence of Curriculum Design Principles
This scale helped significantly in viewing student journal responses as a continuum of autonomous motivational factors. In response to the journal prompt: What motivates you? What have you found motivating this week? Over the past month? Over your life? I received a number of interesting results. One student that ranked high on the more autonomous end of motivating factors wrote:
"Over the past year I think I was usually motivated by personal goals, determination, sense of accomplishment and pleasing others."
On the opposite end of the spectrum, I read totally heartbreaking responses like the quote below from another student:
"The one significant thing that happened this past month was that I had my first Student Led Conference {like a parent teacher conference, except run by the student} where it went good. So I realized it was better than being constantly yelled at by my parents. My top three motivators are the belt, women, and partying."
As I continued to read journal entries I noticed that certain themes emerged. Specifically, ideas of mastery, relevance, and autonomy. These three ideas contribute to individual motivation in three distinct ways. Mastery is the belief that you can excel at something. If you believe you can get better at a particular skill you tend to stick with it. Skills or tasks that you believe are relevant, such as those connected to an interest or passion, are also easier to tackle than something you find pointless or boring. Finally, the more control you have over the process and how it gets done, the higher the level of motivation for the task (Pink, 2011).
Focus Student Journal Responses
John: “Over the last month I was motivated to run faster because Brandon was beating me.”
John: “In my life winning, money, and not having my mom take my computer away are motivating.”
John was from my low grit score group and listed mainly external factors for his motivation. However, he obviously valued autonomy such as having access to his computer, which you could argue provides a certain sense of freedom for a teenager.
Scott: “In my entire life my top three motivators are: happiness, surfing and grades.”
Scott: “Over the past month the moment I was most motivated was when I was surfing. I really wanted to get shacked. I came really close too! I was motivated to experience the feeling of ecstasy as the wave curls over your head while you are crouching on your board.”
Scott was also from the low grit group, however, his description of surfing, had significant elements of a desire to master something he felt passionate about.
Brandon: “When my grades were dropping my mom motivated me by telling me if I didn’t bring my grades up she would pull me off the cross country running team and that motivated me to get my grades up.”
Brandon: “Running is constantly my motivator, because it is my favorite passion.”
Brandon was from the mid grit score group. He also mentioned feeling passionate about an activity. While he didn’t mention in this journal article that he felt compelled to master running, he does mention that it is integral to his happiness. It is relevant to who he is.
Yvette: “I have to motivate myself to go to practice, but I go because I love soccer. I can be doing other things instead of practicing, but I choose to go to practice, because I want to try and get better.”
Yvette also mentions mastery as a motivator.
Anthony: “For just over a year now I have become a major part of the crew of Amazing Grace Tall Ship. Every sail I am motivated to learn from my mistakes and grow as a person. I can see how tall ship sailing has affected my life and want everyone who comes on board to have a similar experience.”
Anthony: “In the last few weeks I have been motivated to make our exhibit look good and work to the best ability. I wanted to work with my group to create a superior exhibit. We used the laser cutter to make sure it was perfect. I was motivated to get a good grade and to get the exhibit to meet my standards.”
Mastery shows up once again in both of these quotes from Anthony, one relating to his passion for sailing, the other related to his exhibit project. Anthony scored high on the grit scale.
Across all grit levels mastery and relevance were common themes for motivation. If a student was interested or passionate about the activity, they had a strong desire to get better at it. Interestingly the only time autonomy cropped up was with John. As someone who catches on very quickly to new ideas and concepts I wonder if his desire for autonomy comes from having to function at a slower pace in his school or home environment.
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The Academic Motivation Scale
In addition to the categorization of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, Deci et. al. developed the Academic Motivation Scale, a questionnaire to determine what types of motivation causes students to go to school (see Appendix A).
The questionnaire includes all seven categories of motivation: intrinsic–to know, intrinsic–to experience, intrinsic–to accomplish, extrinsic–identity, extrinsic–introjected, extrinsic–external regulation and amotivation. Each category is given a score out of 5. The class data was dense, but some interesting themes came to light.
Extrinsic Motivators Were High Across Students
One of the themes from the class data was that the journal entries were indeed corroborated. My students were motivated to a large extent by external factors. A certain level of amotivation showed up across the class, and intrinsic factors, while less than extrinsic ones were still present for everyone to a significant degree.
Shift Towards More Autonomous Forms of Motivation
The most significant thing I noticed was that every student who had a grit score of 3.00 or below self-assessed that external motivating factors were significantly more motivating than internal factors, and in every case external motivation–external regulation was the highest bar on their graph as opposed to more autonomous forms of external motivation such as external motivation–identity or any of the internal motivators. The journal entries of the focus students seem to follow this general trend as well.
As grit scores increased so did the number of students who felt that more autonomous forms of extrinsic motivation such as extrinsic motivation–identity and the intrinsic motivation categories were significant motivators representing a gradual shift to more autonomous forms of motivation. However, external motivation–external regulation remained strong over the entire class. These survey results were intriguing. If there is indeed a link between higher levels of internal motivation and grit, the correlation may be a useful starting point for educators in their quest to adequately prepare their students for success in school and life beyond.
To get a better look at the relative strengths of internal motivation compared to external motivation and whether a gradual shift towards more autonomous forms of motivation correlates with grit, I created an aggregate score for more non-autonomous forms of motivation by adding amotivation, external motivation–external regulation and external motivation–introjected and subtracting it from an aggregate score of more autonomous forms of motivation created by adding external motivation–identity, intrinsic motivation–to know, intrinsic motivation–to experience, and intrinsic motivation–to accomplish. By visualizing the difference between the aggregate scores it is possible to see which form of motivation dominates for academic pursuits while still accounting for relative differences between how students filled out the form. For example, Maggie, rated almost every question with a ‘zero’ except a few questions. She was feeling very low and when I read the journal entry she wrote on the same day it became apparent she was feeling significant pressure from her parents and felt quite hopeless about school and grades. Even with this affecting how she filled out the questionnaire her results were consistent with her answers in interviews. I will discuss this in greater detail in her Case Study section in Chapter 3.
As can be seen in figure 15 there was a general trend towards greater intrinsic averages as grit score increased. The class data followed this trend as well. While I would stop long before claiming this data as statistically significant, it does feel accurate. People are far more likely to engage in activities, even if they are challenging, if they are intrinsically motivated to do so, or if they self identify as the type of person who takes on those challenges. I think we can all relate to instances when we’ve felt passionate about a goal and overcame significant challenges to achieve it, and I’m sure we can all think of times when we overcame a challenge that we felt obliged to do, rather than inspired. The former was probably much more enjoyable than the latter. Similarly, I think that those that experience more intrinsic forms of motivation for academic pursuits demonstrate more grit for challenges that arise during the process. Whereas those that have not internalized autonomous forms of motivation yet have a more difficult time when they encounter a challenging situation. If the motivators you have to rely on are extrinsic and external to your sense of self, it is extremely difficult to summon the will to overcome a significant challenge.
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Themes From Class Data
Correlations Between Self-identity, Motivation, and Grit
The significant level both in the journal entries and in the AMS questionnaire to which extrinsic motivators play a role in students’ behavior regarding school was eye-opening. Deci and Ryan (1985) discuss how adolescents have not yet internalized regulation for learning when the subject matter is uninteresting or cognitively challenging. This may be true, and if it is, I think as teachers we may want to pause before we complain or sigh in frustration when students don’t seem driven by intrinsic interest in our subject matter or our projects. Students may not be at a developmental stage where they have internalized the capacity to focus on content or skills that will benefit them in the future because they are cognitively challenging for them right now. Right now, the extrinsic motivator of grades and parental pleasing might be the only thing they’ve got to get them through. Of course, students are individuals and vary considerably. Some will have internalized the goals necessary for academic success to some extent, whether they self identify as a ‘good student’ or are genuinely interested in the learning at hand, and can see that the diligence now will benefit them in the future, but very, very few are going to be intrinsically motivated by every subject during every class. Expecting otherwise is a recipe for disappointment.
The discovery that motivation is dependent on both the situation and the developmental stage of a student was a huge relief. I suspect that all teachers struggle with student motivation to some extent, and here at High Tech High it is no exception. I work extremely hard to create engaging projects and curriculum for my students, but despite my best efforts, there are always some students who struggle with motivation. Understanding that students develop at different paces and in different ways, from non-autonomous forms of motivation such as external motivation–external regulation, to more autonomous forms such as external motivation–identity, and finally to intrinsic motivation for challenges allowed me to take some of the pressure off myself. Motivation is a shared journey in the classroom and must be treated as such.
One of the lovely consequences of this motivation continuum is that student motivation is not static. Students are in the process of internalizing motivation for different subjects as they make their way through school. This idea that a person is either ‘good at something or not’, or that something is ‘just not my thing’, is most likely false. These stages are temporary and can shift. Carol Dweck writes extensively in her book Mindset (2006) about ‘growth mindsets’ in contrast with ‘fixed mindsets’, regarding intelligence and other traits commonly perceived as static in our culture. From reading the literature and classroom observations I would add motivation to the list of traits that can evolve and grow over time. The real question now becomes, how?
How to Increase Motivation: Mastery, Relevance, and Autonomy
Despite the fact that student motivation for challenging tasks is an evolving trait, there are things that can be done to help increase motivation. While exploring this field I felt like I stumbled on the research that High Tech High was founded on. A useful literature review to read is Motivation and Education: The Self-Determined Perspective by Deci, Vallerand, Pelletier, and Ryan (1991). They mention factors that help motivation, such as autonomy, relevance and mastery. Current publications such as Daniel Pink’s Drive: The Truth About What Motivates Us (2009) also discusses these factors as the key to increasing autonomous forms of motivation for a task.
High Tech High’s design principles of personalization, real world connection, and common intellectual mission address each of these aspects of motivation.
Autonomy
Through personalization teachers encourage student choice in the projects they develop. When students have input regarding what and how they are learning they tend to own the process to a greater extent then when they have no input. Autonomy is related to personalization through this emphasis on choice and control over how projects get completed. The most successful products I’ve seen are when students incorporate their passion with the project.
The museum exhibit project contained a significant amount of student autonomy. Autonomy, as related to motivation, refers to having control over how something gets accomplished. In this project, students chose phenomena that were interesting to them and then designed their exhibits around those phenomena. Feedback was based on their initial designs and as such allowed students to retain ownership of their original idea and the flow of the project. Consequences of this autonomy meant that two groups chose topics that were too difficult for them to finish. However, since the class philosophy was ‘fail early and fail often’ they were not penalized for their struggles, but encouraged return to the drawing board and try again.
Relevance
High Tech High’s real world connection design principle relates to relevance. Creating a link to the outside world for a student helps them see the work as real and relevant. It has a life beyond school, and therefore has more meaning and permanence. Engaging students in real work rather than ‘busy work’ can help them feel motivated to learn even when the work is complex or challenging.
Relevance was incorporated in the Museum Exhibit project in two different ways. The first was allowing students to choose topics that were interesting to them. The second was partnering with the local science museum and bringing in an outside expert for critique sessions. As soon as feedback is coming from someone outside of the school environment it is immediately given weight and consideration by students. It challenges them to take their work seriously and act professionally.
Mastery
Finally, the common intellectual mission design principle addresses the concept of mastery. Motivation increases if students feel like they are able to succeed in what they attempt. Designing projects with significant scaffolding and multiple entry points for different learners helps students build confidence in their abilities and contributes to their motivation.
The Museum Exhibit project had multiple stages of accountability to walk students through the process used by professional museum developers. Over the summer prior to launching the project, staff from the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center and High Tech High, participated in a custom workshop developed by the Exploratorium staff in San Francisco. The focus was on the design process exhibit developers use to create the inquiry exhibits the Exploratorium is famous for. My coworker and I broke down the process and created the curriculum found in Appendix B for use with our biology and chemistry classes respectively. Of particular focus was making the different stages and critical thinking required manageable and transparent for students.
We decided to use three different drafts of the actual build process each proceeded by a design phase based on feedback. From their initial ideas students produced a proof of concept made of cheap materials which was used to prove that the most challenging part of their exhibit actually worked as they hoped it would. The second phase was designing and then building the prototype. At the Exploratorium these two phases can take months of refining and go through multiple stages before an exhibit is deemed ready to be sold to other museums. For the students we only did one iteration due to time constraints. However, two groups did multiple prototypes and never made it to the final build stage.
The final build stage was also preceded by a redesign based on feedback and served as the students’ prototype for floor testing. Given that fourteen out of sixteen groups made it to this stage and two out of sixteen groups made it to multiple reiterations of the prototype stage I think the project scaffolding was adequate and students felt successful.
Chapter 3
Case Studies
In addition to collecting class data from surveys, observations, and journal entries, I also chose four students as case studies. Each provided a new lens through which to view motivation and grit. Three come from my original focus students, and one, Robert, was added mid semester. The students differ in grit scores and also highlight other elements of motivation such as mastery, relevance and autonomy.
John–Amotivation Is No Match for Rigorous Projects
John: “OK, I think my motivation is down here somewhere. Like it doesn’t exist. Like below the chart.”
Daisy: “Ha, OK. So there is actually one more category, it’s called amotivation.”
John: “Yeah that one.”
Brandon: “As in not at all?”
Daisy: “Yeah, correct. John is that how you feel?”
John: “Yeah that’s how I feel. I’m not very motivated for most things.”
John is very academically adept. He knows it, the other students know it, and teachers know it. He has managed to cruise through school so far without much effort. He grasps new concepts quickly and does very well on traditional style tests. His score on the class midterm was 105% the highest in both my classes (52 students).
In response to the journal prompt: What are the roles and responsibilities of students in student learning? What are the roles and responsibilities of teachers in student learning? John wrote the following:
“Learning isn’t hard at all, I generally remember things that people say, so getting good test scores, and learning all the class material is really easy. Doing all the work is really hard though, I don’t like doing things that I don’t think will help me learn.”
This ease for picking up academically challenging material has had some interesting effects on John’s motivation levels for school. Since learning comes easy for him, he can listen to a lecture, get the gist of what was being taught, and then use the remainder of his time being a distraction to other students. Despite this early behavior I believe that John is genuinely curious, and enjoys learning how things work. And I think he really enjoys knowing how things work. He was obviously proud of the fact that he could score so highly on the midterm without studying or doing much of the class work associated with the content.
John’s Motivation & Grit Score Breakdown
John’s responses on the Academic Motivation Scale correlates with his journal writings. On the intrinsic motivation scores he scores highest on intrinsic motivation to know. He also has a relatively high amotivation score compared to the rest of the class. It was this fascinating combination of aptitude and amotivation that made me select John as a focus student for my action research.
Despite John’s amotivation for class work, he does show motivation for one of his passions, running. John is also on the track team and when asked about what motivates him he often mentioned competition with his teammates and competitors.
John: “When you’re running, you look at the person in front of you… is faster… so you want to get faster than them, so you try. But for things like learning and stuff I guess you could set a goal.”
Daisy: “Do you set goals?”
John: “Not really, but like sometimes if I’m like trying to do my homework or something, I do a little bit of it and then take a break, do some more later, and like, go through it slowly.”
And the project begins…
John ran into some challenges as the semester long museum exhibit project progressed. He was partnered initially with another student with low motivation and a highly motivated student. The highly motivated student recognized almost immediately that she would end up doing all the work and extricated herself from the group on the second day and joined a different group. John was now paired with another student with similar low motivation levels for challenging work. Due to the scaffolding of the project, not completing the benchmarks was not an option if you wanted to pass the class. This posed some challenges for John and his partner.
The first challenge was to bring in materials to explore their chosen phenomenon, electricity. Neither partner managed to write up a procedure to explore their investigable questions regarding their phenomenon, and they both forgot to find or bring in materials. The second challenge was the proof of concept for their exhibit. Erik from the Fleet Science Center came in to give feedback on the students’ ideas and John and his partner did not have anything that demonstrated their concept of electricity. The next step was to use Erik’s feedback to design a prototype. In response to the journal prompt during the design phase: What did I accomplish today? What are my next steps? John wrote:
"I didn’t work very well today. I talked a lot and did almost no work. I did get a little bit done in Photoshop, but for the most part I was just a distraction. I’m going to try to draw all my pictures for homework tonight and put all of the poster together tomorrow in class. It might be hard to finish all of it with my cross country meet, but I should be able to."
The power of an audience
The previous journal entry represented a slight shift in John. He and his partner managed to complete their designs. However, the designs were of a basic nature and the prototype they put together lacked effort and functionality. After presenting it to Erik for feedback John and his partner once again stepped up their efforts. They had to go back to the drawing board and create new scale drawing of their plans. This time the drawings had more thought behind them. John and his partner included measurements and more detail as to how their exhibit would be laid out for the user.
There was a deadline to request materials from me for their final build, and John and his partner made sure to make the deadline and put in an order for the necessary alligator clips and light bulbs required. When the time came to have a final exhibit built for feedback from Erik, even though they didn’t make effective use of the week of class time to build it that was provided, they got together over the weekend and arrived with a polished finished exhibit. Their pride in their accomplishment was evident.
In a reflection, John wrote about challenges that they overcame at the different stages of the project. I’m going to include the majority of their reflection because I think it is a powerful story of not only of their initial struggles and motivational challenges, but also how they rose to the occasion and persevered. It was very gritty.
For the proof of concept John recounted the process and challenges they faced:
"We had a few problems with our proof of concept. The first problem was that we had completely wrong light bulbs. The light bulbs we had were made for screwing into the ceiling at a house instead of light bulbs for small batteries, the light bulbs never turned on at all. Another challenge was getting a surface to put our light bulbs on, we eventually just used a small piece of cardboard because we weren’t supposed to spend any extra money. We weren’t able to overcome our challenges because we made ours kind of late and there wasn’t’ enough time to fix the problems. So the problems we had still needing to be resolved were pretty much everything, because none of it worked at all."
Regarding the prototype stage:
"We resolved a few of our issues when we moved onto the prototype, we got a piece of wood to put our light bulbs and batteries on, we found some wires to connect them with and we had a few light bulbs that actually worked. Everything seemed good but we ran into a lot of challenges. One challenge we had was putting together the alligator clips. The wires we had were really big and stiff. When we tried to put the alligator clips on to the wire they didn’t’ fit right and we ended up using hot glue. This resulted in more challenges because the alligator clips looked really ugly and they broke a few times. Another problem with the alligator clips was that they were supposed to be easy to manipulate and easy to connect to different things on the table. Also, not only were the wires stiff, but they weren’t long enough to reach all the light bulbs. Another problem was that the light bulbs didn’t have anything to sit on we just had little stands made from old skateboard parts. If we tried to connect the light bulbs to the wires they just came off their stands. Another issue was the batteries coming out of place, we had them glued in place but they popped off when we tried to use it. Another issue was running out of power, two of the three batteries ran out of power and we couldn’t use them anymore. We were able to resolve this issue by taking an old AD/DC adapter and using it instead of a battery because the adapter doesn’t ever run out of power unless you unplug it.
Our feedback from Erik was pretty much that we were really far behind and we needed to work a lot harder to catch up to everybody else because everybody else’s prototypes worked well, but our prototype worked about half as well as everyone else’s proof of concept. It sounded to me like he was having trouble giving useful feedback because we didn’t have enough work done."
I loved this insight. Not only did John realize that Erik was a valuable resource, but he also understood that in order to make the most of professional feedback he had to put in work too.
Amotivation gives way in the face of purpose
As the final build drew nearer there was a significant shift in John’s motivation:
"For our final build we worked a lot harder and caught up with the rest of the class. We bought a 6V battery and took it apart so we could use the outer casing, once we got all the inside stuff out we plugged in the AC/DC adapter to where the small batteries used to be and put it back together. Also, as Erik suggested, we made a box and split it into three different sections so multiple people can use it at a time. We also bought nicer alligator clips that were premade with flimsy wires so the exhibit would stay together when people used it. In the previous versions we didn’t think of switches, but we also added switches to our final build."
Erik had suggested that they use a ‘fake’ battery, a battery case encompassing an AC/DC adapter that plugged into the wall. The power source would look like a battery to visitors, reinforcing the idea that batteries were a source of power, but when on the floor it would not need replacing.
"If we could do one more build I think I would actually take out the dividers that make the box into three sections I think everyone could just share the big open space and it would work a lot better. I would make bigger boxes for light bulbs, switches and alligator clips. Right now they are kind of small and they fit pretty tightly. I would also spend a little bit more time trying to keep the battery looking nice; it has a few little marks on it because it was hard to take apart without breaking it. If I had the materials too, I would also solder the AC/DC adapter to the inside of the battery case instead of just using electrical tape like we did. Also if I had more supplies I might add motors or something other than light bulbs so that there could be more options. Most importantly, I would redo the light bulbs. Right now the light bulbs break off really easily. An issue we didn’t think about before is that glue melts when it gets hot, so the light bulbs can’t be on for very long before it starts to break. The light bulbs also could be a bit of a safety hazard because they get really hot. We should have gotten less powerful light bulbs that give off less heat. The last, and least important thing I would have done differently would be painting it. I think we should have put 2 or 3 more coats of polycrylic on the wood because right now it doesn’t look quite as shiny as some of the nicer looking exhibits."
What struck me most about this reflection was the transformation from not putting much effort in, to putting in real work, dealing with numerous challenges and thinking through how to fix them, and finally, having enough work invested to clearly articulate what he would change if he had more time.
Evidence of shifts in self-perception
As I was trying to dig into how their experiences throughout the museum exhibit project felt relevant to their lives, John wrote an interesting response to the journal prompt: How has this project connected to your life, a wondering, or a memory?
"In projects I am normally the person who slacks off and does whatever my partners say to do. In this project I had to step it up a bit because me and my partner were both that kind of person. We weren't getting anything done and both had to change how we worked and try to get through our project as a team. We almost had another member of our group who would have been a fantastic leader, but between the two of us we did so little work that she left our group and we were left to solve our own problems. This was a kind of new experience for me because I don't think I have ever had to make decisions in a project before except maybe once last year. It was hard because I was always worried that I wasn't giving my partner enough choices and I kept wondering if he wanted to do something else, but he seemed to mostly just do whatever I wanted to do. I have never liked being a leader or making decisions, but this project forced me to."
I found this journal entry very encouraging. It seems he drew on a new definition of self to accomplish something challenging. The expectation of mastery was inherent in the project. The real world connection didn’t allow for failure without trying. It’s one thing to blow off a teacher, but a whole other to sit across from a professional and tell them you haven’t done what you said you would. And my favorite part of John’s journey is still to come.
Once the students finished their final builds, sixth graders were invited to try them out and give feedback. During the feedback session with the middle school students, John and his partner realized that the lights they were using got too hot and melted the glue they had used to attach them to blocks of wood. They all fell off. In addition, as the exhibits waited for exhibition night at the Fleet, other pieces broke and ‘walked away’ as things are wont to do in a classroom.
When Erik came for a final review a couple days before exhibition, Johns exhibit was a little shy of its former glory. Erik suggested using LED Christmas lights as a substitute for the current lights. This brought on a new concern that the power supply they were using might be too strong for the lights and some additional testing would have to be done to address the issues and get things functioning properly.
There was no further communication on the topic from Erik or myself over the next two days, but when the exhibits were delivered to the Fleet, John’s was fixed and functional. Not only had they replaced all the lights, but they had done the testing with the power source to ensure it was safe.
John’s journal entry speaks strongly to ensuring that rigor and outside accountability are incorporated into each project, so these layers of connection and development have a chance to occur. I think this experience was an important one for him. There is safety in amotivation. If you don’t care, you won’t get hurt, things don’t matter. The teenage years are tremendously hard on self-confidence and it’s a wonder that any of us make it through with our sense of self in tact, but experiences of this nature, success after work and pride in our accomplishments can have tremendous protective and long-term positive effects.
The final project journal prompt asked: What are you most proud of this semester in chemistry and what was a highlight from the exhibition last night?
"In chemistry I’m most proud of building the frame of my project. Most of the other things I did were half-hearted, or partner-hearted. I actually tried pretty hard while building the final build of my project though."
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Scott–The Lure Of Mastery
"There was a time in our project when Steven and I were working on our proof of concept, and Steven knew exactly what he was doing and I was pretty much clueless. Normally, I would be perfectly okay with that as long as the project got done, but for the first time I was really intrigued and I wanted to know why everything was happening."
Scott ranked relatively low on the grit scale compared to the rest of the class. Interestingly, his mother came up to me on Back to School night and confided that Scott was very capable, but had a tendency to not push himself. She implored me to keep him challenged and keep the expectations of achievement high.
Scott’s Motivation & Grit Score Breakdown
Scott–The Lure Of Mastery
"There was a time in our project when Steven and I were working on our proof of concept, and Steven knew exactly what he was doing and I was pretty much clueless. Normally, I would be perfectly okay with that as long as the project got done, but for the first time I was really intrigued and I wanted to know why everything was happening."
Scott ranked relatively low on the grit scale compared to the rest of the class. Interestingly, his mother came up to me on Back to School night and confided that Scott was very capable, but had a tendency to not push himself. She implored me to keep him challenged and keep the expectations of achievement high.
Scott’s Motivation & Grit Score Breakdown
Scott comes across as an affable surfer, friendly, funny and laid back. His scores on the academic motivation scale were predominantly of the extrinsic variety, but closely split between the least self-determined form, extrinsic motivation–external regulation, and the most self-determined form of external motivation–identity. These seemingly paradoxical results actually reflect the dual nature of Scott’s motivation quite well. For many things Scott requires external motivation of the external regulation kind to get started. His mom, teachers, grades, Scott relies on these external motivators to push him to get the bare minimum done for an acceptable grade when he is only marginally interested in the work at hand. However, he is also bright, capable and feels passionate about things that truly interest him. For these tasks his motivation is far more self-determined. He genuinely wants to know more and sees himself as able to achieve. When the opportunity arose to work on something he found interesting, electricity, he really wanted to create a cool and professional exhibit.
Scott and his partners chose to create a Jacob’s Ladder. This was one of those scenarios where I had to rely on instinct. My knowledge of circuits, electricity and how to manipulate voltage in a safe way is minimal at best. In most cases I would steer students away from something so obviously demanding as creating plasma in the classroom, and try to create a project scope more in line with student abilities. However, the group was really excited, and one member in particular (Steven) spoke with such confidence about his plan, laying out details, mentioning resources for supplies, and ultimately sending me a video clip of him tazering himself to prove that what they were going to be adapting for the inside guts of the project was safe for a school environment, that I handed over all control of the project to the group. In this case it proved to be the right call.
Mastery through inquiry
Due to the scope of this project, there were a multitude of issues to overcome. Miraculously, I didn’t hear about any of them until the final reflection when the group members journaled about the challenges they had faced. In response to the journal prompt: What challenges did you face with your proof of concept? Scott wrote:
"The construction of our first Jacob’s ladder went fairly smooth… It was comprised of two transformers that had positive and negative wires connected to two separate metal rods. The transformers were connected to a wall outlet for the original voltage that would be transformed and multiplied into a much higher voltage needed for the Jacob’s ladder. All of the components were attached to a thin plank of wood, which served as a base. Later we would change this design completely. The one big problem with our proof of concept was that the electricity wouldn’t arc at the highest point on the rods. To fix this problem in our prototype we added an extra flyback transformer increasing the voltage and making the electricity go all the way up the rods."
Even though Scott and his group mates managed to fix their first issue, the prototype stage brought on an onslaught of new challenges.
"Some of the challenges we faced in the prototype part of the project are the following:
{I have bulleted his list for easier reading.}
- Finding testing poles that weren’t conductive and wouldn’t melt
- Finding a conductor and insulator to test
- Finding an efficient way to encase the Jacobs ladder with the components out of reach
- Creating access for future fixes without leaving the electronics vulnerable to kids fingers
- Controlling heat inside of the container
- Incorporating a quick release button so it couldn’t accidentally be left on
- Finding a mechanism to allow the insulator and conductor to enter the stream of electricity without electrocuting anyone.
"To find the testing poles, Lisa had to do some research finding out what materials would not melt or conduct and were in the shape of rods that could be cut. After testing a couple materials the only one that could withstand the heat were acrylic rods. We then got rods and sleeves to make the mechanism to insert the conductor and insulator. We made this to show that when electricity is in contact with a conductor it jumps through it and when it’s in contact with an insulator it jumps around it."
The next step was to find appropriate materials for the conductor and insulator portions of the testing rods. This resulted in another round of experiments.
"To find the insulator and conductor we did multiple tests. First we found how much electricity pennies, quarters, plastics and glass conduct. We found that pennies are the most conductive and glass was the least. When our group made the prototype we didn’t secure the testing poles yet, but we tested the conductor and insulator by putting them on rods and sticking them into the electricity. Thankfully it worked!"
After determining what to use for a conductor and an insulator, the group had to secure the rods on either side so they could be pushed into the stream without leaving any holes for small fingers. Scott found some plastic nuts that served perfectly.
"Next we had to create a mechanism that could not melt or electrocute anyone, and could be removed from the stream of electricity by the user. I made a couple rough sketches of what I thought would work and Lisa took them home to make. After researching a bunch of places to find the type of acrylic rods we were looking for, Lisa’s dad had a connection and got the perfect sized rods and sleeves. The next struggle was drilling them into the side of the plastic container in a way that no little kids could stick their finger inside. We decided the best way was to make two nuts and screw them in on both sides of the box so that no one could remove or put their fingers in.
Another challenge we had to overcome was figuring out how to hide all of the electrical components of the Jacob’s Ladder. At first we were going to just have the electrical stuff on the side and the Jacobs ladder on the other side, but our group decided that wouldn’t be efficient or neat looking. Erik came up with a good idea to put the Jacobs ladder on top with the components in a box underneath. In our prototype it worked, but {in our final build} the box had to be reconstructed to look more professional.
Lastly, we had an issue with the Jacob’s ladder emitting too much heat and making the outside of the plastic way too hot. Since we doubled the voltage and heat rises, we were nervous that it could potentially melt the plastic or burn someone. In order to lessen the heat we drilled holes on the top making it well ventilated. This solved our problem."
At this stage, the group had immersed themselves in the inquiry process. They were conducting research, designing experiments to test aspects of their exhibit design, creating a model of a natural phenomenon, analyzing results and thinking critically about how best to create an engaging, safe exhibit that could survive on the museum floor and communicate their phenomenon to a broad audience. This was inquiry at it’s finest! Ironically at the beginning of the project I was worried about whether I was emphasizing the inquiry vocabulary enough. Worried that if I did not spell everything out for the students they would miss the fact that they were actually using inquiry skills. But by this point in the project, so much inquiry was actually happening, I couldn’t have cared less whether the students could concretely identify what inquiry step they were on. The importance of categorizing each step, of in fact ‘teaching,’ fell by the wayside as the students became internally motivated to actively engage in the inquiry process and master the process of creating a beautiful exhibit.
Role of autonomy and effective scaffolding in mastery
The group worked diligently and autonomously to get their exhibit functioning and professional. In response to the final journal prompt: What are you most proud of this semester in chemistry and what was a highlight from the exhibition last night? Scott wrote:
"I am super proud of my exhibit, probably prouder than any other project I’ve done in a while. The proof of concept and Erik’s feedback really helped me do this project. The proof of concept helped me really understand what I was working with and Erik had some innovative suggestions that made our project more professional looking. All of the free time we had in class was extremely helpful because we could just work and do our own thing. For other teachers wanting to do this project I would suggest that they should give plenty of work time, and there should be many drafts of your exhibit so that it keeps improving."
Two factors are mentioned in his reflection that significantly helped Scott understand this project. Both were aspects related to project scaffolding. The first was the proof of concept, the first stage of exhibit development was designed to ensure students tackled the most difficult part of their exhibit right off the bat. If their phenomena could be demonstrated at this stage, it was a clear indicator of whether the project could move forward or if the students needed to shift their focus to another idea.
The second factor was access to experts. Both Steven, Scott’s partner, and Erik, the Fleet exhibit engineer, provided expertise that Scott found interesting and useful for mastery of his project. The feedback sessions with Erik were focused on the three most significant benchmarks of the project: the proof of concept, the plans for the prototype, and finally the prototype in preparation for the final build. I found it heartening that Scott noticed the advances the group made on the exhibit with each round of critique and that his suggestion for teachers attempting this project was to do multiple drafts to ensure quality. His pride was evident.
Scott’s reflection also has a great deal to do with the three aspects believed to increase motivation: relevance, mastery, and autonomy. When Scott realized he was interested in the topic the group chose to cover, (and what teenager wouldn’t be interested in taking apart a tazer?), he wanted to understand all aspects and master the topic.
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Maggie–The Saving Grace of Passion
"I want to do marine biology. Every project I get I somehow twist it to be about that because that is the only way I’ll probably even do it."
A passion for all things ocean
Maggie caught my attention early on in the semester when she came up to discuss the phenomenon we had been exploring that day; bubbles floating above dry ice. She was very excited about her theory and wanted to share it. It was a good theory, one she could test with a little thought and effort, and I recognized someone excited to think about how things work. When she scored a four on the grit scale I selected her as a focus student.
In the first panel discussion Maggie disclosed that she was passionate about the ocean. She had numerous books at home on aquatic ecosystems and the organisms that can be found in the sea. One of her quotes in particular stuck with me.
"What I really like about it {the inquiry process} is the fact that not everything in the world is put in a textbook and there is not always an answer, and there is like, so much still out there to discover even after we’ve been here for a million years. You need… I don’t know, you have to kind of like, care, you can’t like… I don’t know how to explain it, you have to want to discover things."
Maggie was very motivated for the first phase of the project. For the initial phenomenon exploration phase her group chose to focus on the effects of copper ions on the freshwater flea, Daphnia, to analyze how certain heavy metal pollutants could affect ecosystems. After a discussion with the biology teacher, Jesse Wade Robinson, they decided to determine the LD50 (lethal dose that kills 50% of the organism in a sample, a common unit of comparison in biology and toxicology) for their strain of daphnia. They also examined the effects of different copper concentrations on observable physiological processes such as heart rate and mobility. Maggie’s excitement at seeing the daphnia under a microscope and watching their hearts beating was palpable and contagious, her group was enthralled.
The group decided to do their inquiry exhibit on the food chain. Their plan was to construct an exhibit where you could fit pieces with different animals painted on them into a web of holes connected by arrows, and if you had the animals in the correct positions regarding who ate whom, LEDs would illuminate. They developed a proof of concept made from cardboard. They also ran into their first challenge. They needed to get the electrical circuit working to confirm they could. In her journal, Maggie reflected on developing the proof of concept:
"When we built our proof of concept, we used cardboard and duct tape. It worked okay, but the pieces didn’t fit in very well. The animals on the blocks weren’t drawn; they were just printed out pictures. The whole thing wasn’t very stable either. I stayed in at lunch and tried to do all the electrical stuff. We were missing materials, and no teachers would lend us any of the things that we needed. I improvised because I couldn’t find any wires; we only had two very short ones. I raided our classroom and finally found one conductive object–thumbtacks. I connected them in a chain to make a wire so that the current could flow through it."
Maggie–The Saving Grace of Passion
"I want to do marine biology. Every project I get I somehow twist it to be about that because that is the only way I’ll probably even do it."
A passion for all things ocean
Maggie caught my attention early on in the semester when she came up to discuss the phenomenon we had been exploring that day; bubbles floating above dry ice. She was very excited about her theory and wanted to share it. It was a good theory, one she could test with a little thought and effort, and I recognized someone excited to think about how things work. When she scored a four on the grit scale I selected her as a focus student.
In the first panel discussion Maggie disclosed that she was passionate about the ocean. She had numerous books at home on aquatic ecosystems and the organisms that can be found in the sea. One of her quotes in particular stuck with me.
"What I really like about it {the inquiry process} is the fact that not everything in the world is put in a textbook and there is not always an answer, and there is like, so much still out there to discover even after we’ve been here for a million years. You need… I don’t know, you have to kind of like, care, you can’t like… I don’t know how to explain it, you have to want to discover things."
Maggie was very motivated for the first phase of the project. For the initial phenomenon exploration phase her group chose to focus on the effects of copper ions on the freshwater flea, Daphnia, to analyze how certain heavy metal pollutants could affect ecosystems. After a discussion with the biology teacher, Jesse Wade Robinson, they decided to determine the LD50 (lethal dose that kills 50% of the organism in a sample, a common unit of comparison in biology and toxicology) for their strain of daphnia. They also examined the effects of different copper concentrations on observable physiological processes such as heart rate and mobility. Maggie’s excitement at seeing the daphnia under a microscope and watching their hearts beating was palpable and contagious, her group was enthralled.
The group decided to do their inquiry exhibit on the food chain. Their plan was to construct an exhibit where you could fit pieces with different animals painted on them into a web of holes connected by arrows, and if you had the animals in the correct positions regarding who ate whom, LEDs would illuminate. They developed a proof of concept made from cardboard. They also ran into their first challenge. They needed to get the electrical circuit working to confirm they could. In her journal, Maggie reflected on developing the proof of concept:
"When we built our proof of concept, we used cardboard and duct tape. It worked okay, but the pieces didn’t fit in very well. The animals on the blocks weren’t drawn; they were just printed out pictures. The whole thing wasn’t very stable either. I stayed in at lunch and tried to do all the electrical stuff. We were missing materials, and no teachers would lend us any of the things that we needed. I improvised because I couldn’t find any wires; we only had two very short ones. I raided our classroom and finally found one conductive object–thumbtacks. I connected them in a chain to make a wire so that the current could flow through it."
This was a genius idea. Her resourcefulness and ability to think outside the box were commendable. With proof of concept in hand the group met with Erik and sketched out plans for their prototype. All groups completed a poster that contained information and images about their phenomenon as well as scale drawings of their plans.
Demotivating events beyond our control
Maggie was beginning to have difficulty with some of her class work. She has a tendency to be social and get off task, and it was affecting her academics. The more it affected her academics the harder time she had paying attention to new concepts and the further she was falling behind in class work separate from the project. As a class we were examining what we found motivating. In response to the journal prompt: What motivates you? What have you found motivating this week? Over the past month? Over your life? She wrote the following:
"Over the past month, I’ve been noticing that I’m not self motivated. I probably would be if my parents weren’t breathing down my back about everything. They print out my grades every day and go through every assignment I missed or test I didn’t do well on. They lock me up in the house (not literally) and don’t let me go anywhere if I miss anything. I feel like even if I got straight A’s they would never be satisfied. I do all this work and studying just for them to say it’s not good enough. I keep going around in this cycle just hoping one day it will be enough. But it won’t and deep down I know that, but I have to keep trying because I don’t know what else to do."
This was a heartbreaking journal entry and it reminded me of the pitfalls laid out by Daniel Pink in his work Drive: The Truth About What Motivates Us (2011), and how too much scrutiny can crush motivation. When the focus of work switches from internal interest to pleasing others it can be difficult to maintain motivation. This was an interesting development that ran countercurrent to everything I had been discovering about external motivators for my students. In the case of many students, outside opinion, that of parents, teachers or mentors was a significant motivator as they progressed from external motivation–external regulation to external motivation–identity and internalized motivation for learning. However, in the case of Maggie, she already had a deep internal motivation to learn when it pertained to her passion and things that interested her. When the focus became grades her motivation withered.
This journal entry also reminded me of the intensity of emotion that comes with being a teenager. In follow up interviews with Maggie she mentioned that she was having relationship issues with her boyfriend as well as her parents. On the occasions when I had met Maggie’s parents, at her student led conference and in meetings after school, I saw two genuinely concerned individuals grappling with how to communicate effectively with a daughter who was struggling to identify herself as a separate and unique individual. Maggie’s journal entries and difficulties at this time highlight the role that emotions, living conditions, and self-identity play in the life of an adolescent, and how significantly they can affect learning and motivation.
Maggie’s Motivation & Grit Score Breakdown
After analyzing the journal entries regarding intrinsic and extrinsic motivators I found the Academic Motivation Scale to help distinguish between external motivators and internal ones. Maggie was still very glum regarding her academic, relationship and home situations when she filled it out and only ranked a few of the questions. She was quite dramatic about it in class. However, the questions she chose to answer were still reflective of her deep-seated passion to understand. She chose to answer the following questions in response to the prompt: indicate to what extent each of the following items presently corresponds to one of the reasons why you go to school. I have noted which type of motivation the question addressed after in italics.
- Because I experience pleasure and satisfaction while learning new things. Intrinsic Motivation–to Know
- For the pleasure I experience while surpassing myself in my studies. Intrinsic Motivation–to Accomplish
- For the pleasure I experience when I discover new things never seen before. Intrinsic Motivation–to Know
- For the pleasure that I experience while I am surpassing myself in one of my personal accomplishments. Intrinsic Motivation–to Accomplish
- Because I want to have the ‘good life’ later on. Extrinsic Motivation–External Regulated
- To show myself I am an intelligent person. Extrinsic Motivation–Introjected
- Because my studies allow me to continue to learn about many things that interest me. Intrinsic Motivation–to Know
- Because high school allows me to experience a personal satisfaction in my quest for excellence in my studies. Intrinsic Motivation–to Accomplish
- Because I want to sow myself that I can succeed in my studies. Extrinsic Motivation–Introjected
Six of the nine questions she answered were related to intrinsic motivation to know or accomplish. During this time one of her group partners expressed concern about the fact that he felt he was now doing most of the work for the project. Apparently her dip in motivation was affecting her contributions to the project as well. When the final build was due, Maggie persevered. She visited her group member’s house over the weekend and they managed to get all the electronics working and finish their final build.
Enduring nature of a passion
One of the journal prompts hoped to understand how students’ exhibit experience related to their lives. How has this project connected to your life, a wondering, or a memory?
"My experience with the phenomenon project {exhibit project} was difficult. I overcame a lot of challenges that I would usually give up on. What kept me going was the fact that my project reflected my love for the ocean."
She didn’t elaborate at the time what the challenges were, but it was evident what kept her engaged and provided the reason for her persistence and grit. In her final journal entry she discusses: What are you most proud of about your museum exhibit? What skills did you take away from the project?
"I’m very proud of my museum exhibit. I worked so hard on it and I learned so many different skills. My phenomenon was very interesting and it was great to reflect that in my exhibit. Through this project I learned how to use a drill, make circuits, paint better, make different concentrations of chemicals, electrical wiring and communication within my group."
My biggest take away from Maggie, was how fragile motivation can be, and how persistent a passion can be. Her love of the ocean did not diminish through this project, but her ability to focus and stay positive suffered a serious blow. Passions are enduring while there are still things to explore about them, but motivation can be derailed by emotional upheaval, or increasing focus on outcomes not related to the original passion, especially if the motivation to explore was intrinsic in the first place.
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Robert–Intrinsic Motivation: A Case For Autonomy
Robert did not come to my attention until mid semester. About the time when the students and I analyzed intrinsic versus extrinsic motivators and I had the kids journal about what motivated them over the past week, month and lifetime. As I’ve mentioned before, every student but one listed external motivators as their top reasons to pursue things that were difficult. The one who didn’t was Robert. This is what he wrote:
"Knowledge. I really just want to learn more about the world and share this knowledge with others. I read Wikipedia and ask big questions all the time."
As a teacher I felt like I had just found the Holy Grail. A student who was curious! Who loves to explore and learn, and not just some of the time, but about everything! Since this world view resonates so strongly with my own, I was quite shocked when I first started teaching and found the drive to follow through on innate curiosities was actually quite rare. I think all humans are curious about the world around them, and when I ask students to generate questions they can usually come up with hundreds in the span of a few minutes, but rarely does this manifest in action to learn about their curiosities.
Robert’s Motivation & Grit Score Breakdown
When Robert took the AMS questionnaire he scored highest on more self-determined forms of motivation including external motivation–identity, internal motivation–to know and internal motivation–to accomplish. Robert’s greater tendency towards intrinsic motivation over extrinsic motivators was rare, and a trait that he shared with the high grit students. His survey proved accurate as Robert and his group delved into the exhibit project.
When autonomy is all you need
Robert and his partners remained focused and engaged throughout the entire project. They ran into many challenges, but met them all head-on and made an engaging and unique exhibit. In their final reflection they discussed their path from an initial exploration of buoyancy followed by a switch to electricity, before finally settling on light.
"The first one was buoyancy, I thought it [their experiment] was rather successful, but practically we would not have been able to build an exhibit for it. The second [idea] was electricity and how to create and manipulate it. This also failed miserably because generating electricity is far more difficult than we had anticipated, we failed to generate enough rotational energy and we were not entirely sure about the process in which it was generated. Fail early fail often is a good way to summarize how this project worked with us."
The group decided to create a light box where you could experiment with the different primary colors of pigment and the primary colors of light to see how they blend with one another. However, once they settled on designing an exhibit around light a new set of challenges arose.
"Challenges we had in the building process were getting the light filters to work. With the colors it wasn’t blending the right way. The red was overpowering all the other colors and the yellow wasn’t strong enough. So what we had to do was add more yellow color gels on top of it to make the color stronger. So that the red and yellow made the right shade of orange.
We also did a lot of testing with the color gels to see if the colors weren’t showing because the light was too weak or it wasn’t the right color. So to test the lights we got different flashlights and put the color gels in front to of it to see if it worked or didn’t."
For Robert, the intrinsic motivation to explore and accomplish were so high, that grit and tenacity came easily. I never had to prompt the group or push them in their thinking, they were always one step ahead of me and pursuing their own ideas about how to make the project the best they could.
When asked to journal about How did this project connect to your life, a wondering, a memory, or in some other way? Robert wrote:
"The science was by far the most relevant thing I learned. I had no idea that the laws of optics were related to how radios work. Science is amazing. Knowing more of it has always empowered me to a greater sense of understanding. This project settled the red vs. blue debate on an objective basis![2] Every science concept I learn I apply and learn more about on my own time. I analyze, ask questions and think about it. I often find myself unable to sleep because I have to write down something I thought. Every spec of scientific knowledge leads me to more ideas, more thinking and more fulfillment."
[2] Apparently, there has been an on-going debate among Robert’s friends as to which is the better color, red or blue. Upon learning that blue light has more energy than red light Robert decided this made blue the superior color.
When purpose, mastery and autonomy work in harmony to promote motivation
I feel that his journal response shows deep intrinsic motivation and touches on aspects of both mastery and relevance. On the one hand he loves science and is intrinsically motivated to learn all he can, so the project was relevant to his passions and felt fulfilling, but he also speaks about his desire to understand deeply, which is an aspect of mastery. Both of these elements, when combined with significant autonomy allowed for a natural unfolding of learning. The inquiry process progressed organically and authentically. When gurus of motivation and PBL preach about projects driving both motivation and learning, they are envisioning Robert’s group, where a perfect synergy between passion, mastery and autonomy led to effortless motivation and perseverance in the creation of beautiful work.
Chapter 4
Whole Class Inquiry Data
Inquiry Skills
One of the focus areas for the museum exhibit project was to expose students to the inquiry process. In attempting to create an exhibit where visitors to the museum could engage in developing their own questions to investigate, students needed to both understand the steps involved in inquiry, but also undergo these steps to complete a successful exhibit. At the beginning of the semester I was worried about the ‘meta’ nature of the project. Using inquiry to develop inquiry exhibits for museum visitors seemed like a dicey way to try and introduce inquiry to students. It was a little like asking students to write an essay on how to write an essay when they’d never done it before. However, based on before and after surveys and the student exhibits, I feel fairly confident that the project was successful in this regard.
In response to the prompt: List the skills you used in this class over the past semester and during the museum exhibit project, the students listed the following skills in figure 26.
I love this list of skills. I was particularly interested in the students who listed perseverance. This was a challenging project and required tremendous grit to see it through to the end. I was pleased to see it listed as a skill, instead of an innate trait.
Pre and post semester survey data
Pre and post semester survey results about which skills students felt were important for a scientist to develop were interesting. Those mentioned at the beginning of the year were often trait based. Students mentioned patience, perseverance, an open mind, good attitude, confidence, and curiosity. All definitely worthy traits of scientists, however, at the end of the year the list was primarily skill based. Predicting, hypothesizing, exploring, communicating, analyzing, observing were all listed frequently. In addition, all students listed more than one skill at the end of the year, whereas many students had one trait or less in the beginning of the semester.
This shift in focus from traits to skills was a concrete example that students had learned what the inquiry skills were. Skills are also attainable, whereas traits are often thought of as innate. However, I felt a sense of loss at the more open ended idealistic traits they had left behind in favor of the ‘taught’ skills, especially since so many students demonstrated so many of the traits throughout the semester. Perhaps my next action research will explore how to acquire both desirable skills and desirable traits.
It was also interesting to see the shift in ‘knowledge,’ which was listed by a number of students at the beginning of the year and only a very few at the end of the semester. There was an opposing trend in ‘critical thinking’ with two students mentioning it in the beginning of the semester and seven listing it at the end of the semester. When I asked those who listed knowledge as a skill scientists needed in the beginning of the semester, they verified that to them, this meant that scientists needed to know a lot of facts. I was heartened to see the decline in this viewpoint by the end of the semester and a rise in those that felt that critical thinking was important. Knowledge implies rote memorization while critical thinking implies problem solving and thinking outside the box. To me this was a shift in the right direction, and I hope it correlated to a deeper understanding that knowledge is only as good as the critical thinking that applies it.
From the above graph, you may question whether my students could actually apply the inquiry skills they had learned about. I would argue from the case study evidence that the students both knew the inquiry skill terminology and how to implement the skills effectively. When asked about their experience directly there was a dramatic shift from the beginning of the semester compared to their confidence in their inquiry skills at the end.
Experimental design
In the exhibit design project the initial stages focused on exploring phenomena through experimental design, however, after that point the project did not focus on experiments as much as it did on problem solving and refinement in response to critique. Often experiment design was used to solve particular building challenges, such as when Robert had to find a suitable thickness for the yellow gel to create the proper orange color when blended with the red gel, or when Scott and his group had to determine the conductive properties of various substances to use on their Jacob’s Ladder testing poles. In addition, we still used the inquiry process to explore other topics together as a class. Pre and post semester surveys showed that there was an increased confidence in designing experiments after the semester was over.
Supporting a claim with evidence
Students also reported feeling slightly more confident about using evidence from an experiment to support a claim. An example was provided with the question on both pre and post surveys so students had a clear example to base their response on (see Appendix A for survey questions).
Students also reported feeling slightly more confident about using evidence from an experiment to support a claim. An example was provided with the question on both pre and post surveys so students had a clear example to base their response on (see Appendix A for survey questions).
Summary
Overall the pre and post survey data showed that students learned what the inquiry skills were and utilized them to create inquiry based museum exhibits. Students also gained confidence in setting up their own experiments and supporting claims using evidence. The most dramatic shifts were seen in the skills students believed scientists should have and how knowledgeable they felt about the inquiry process. In the beginning of the semester students listed a few, mainly trait based skills that they believed scientists should have. However, at the end of the semester, nearly every student listed three or more of the inquiry skills. They also felt significantly more knowledgeable about the inquiry process and how to apply it.
In retrospect it would have been interesting to have a way to measure student grit before and after the project. The original grit score survey developed by Angela Duckworth is designed as a comprehensive snapshot of grit in general. Whether or not it can be used reliably to measure shifts in grit has not been validated by research at this point. A journal exercise could be used in its stead for those interested. I imagine a ‘how gritty do I think I am when it comes to projects’ prompt at the beginning of the year followed by ‘how gritty do I think I am now, after this past project’ at the end of the year.
Overall the pre and post survey data showed that students learned what the inquiry skills were and utilized them to create inquiry based museum exhibits. Students also gained confidence in setting up their own experiments and supporting claims using evidence. The most dramatic shifts were seen in the skills students believed scientists should have and how knowledgeable they felt about the inquiry process. In the beginning of the semester students listed a few, mainly trait based skills that they believed scientists should have. However, at the end of the semester, nearly every student listed three or more of the inquiry skills. They also felt significantly more knowledgeable about the inquiry process and how to apply it.
In retrospect it would have been interesting to have a way to measure student grit before and after the project. The original grit score survey developed by Angela Duckworth is designed as a comprehensive snapshot of grit in general. Whether or not it can be used reliably to measure shifts in grit has not been validated by research at this point. A journal exercise could be used in its stead for those interested. I imagine a ‘how gritty do I think I am when it comes to projects’ prompt at the beginning of the year followed by ‘how gritty do I think I am now, after this past project’ at the end of the year.