1.

A)

Intrinsic Motivation & External Rewards

When we use our energy for what we need or want we are said to be
"motivated." There are two types of motivation. Intrinsic motivation is
motivation that comes from inside (enjoyment, satisfaction). Extrinsic
motivation comes from outside (money, grades, detention, awards,
prizes). External rewards work in the short term and that's why it continues to
be so widely in education. This is a short sighted method of controlling
behavior. In the long term it is much more powerful for students to experience
positive feelings as a result of connecting with others, creating a sense of
belonging, setting goals, working hard, and achieving success. These are the
factors that will lead to a love of learning, not a sticker, candy bar, or pizza
party.

I've learned...
Motivation

 Rewards are consequences that can be predicted and have market value. Do this and get
that. Some people believe that the use of external rewards as a motivational tool can reduce
the natural development of intrinsic motivation.

 Many teacher use extrinsic rewards in an attempt to change student’s attitudes and
behaviors. What we really want is for students to want to learn without having
to coerce them. The more teachers use bribes and rewards, the more intrinsic motivation is
conditioned out of their students. They may get what we want at the moment, but in the end I
believe we are doing a disservice to our students.
 Inciting fear and the use of threats are some ways teachers use external motivation in an
effort to control behavior. Threat creates stress and stress has a negative effect on the brain
and learning.
 All students receive reward differently. But when a class connects or has a positive learning
experience, a high percentage of students have a positive biological response which will be
tied to that learning experience. This serves to build intrinsic motivation.
 The brain makes its own rewards in the form of opiates. These powerful
brain chemicals regulate stress and pain. The brain's reward system says, “That was great.
I’ll remember that so I can do it again.”
 Clear, relevant, well-defined goals help students think about the future and contribute to
positive feelings and beliefs. Having goals and positive beliefs create emotional states that
contribute to learning. A feeling of progress is what motivates people to continue trying
especially when things are difficult. Seeing progress produces reward chemicals that keep
you going forward.
REWARD

 External control involves using fear and threat if students don't do what we want and using
rewards to reinforce when they do.
 Rewards are motivating. They motivate people to work to get rewards. Is that what
we want?
 We are naturally rewarded internally (with "feel good" brain chemicals) when we achieve
success as a result of hard work. This further motivates us to repeat the behaviors that made
us experience those good feelings. Offering external rewards can interfere with the
development of connection. Rewarding students for good behavior works the same way. As
adults, nobody gets a prize for going the speed limit or not breaking the law. There are
logical consequences for all behavior - good and bad.
 Celebrations are different than reward. They are not held out like a "carrot" to chase, or
"hoop" to jump through and they can be as simple as a class chant, high five or academic
game.

How can choice, relevant goal setting opportunities, self-managed feedback and
opportunities to be "gritty," be built in to lessons in an effort to help eliminate
stress & threat? How can what we know about intrinsic motivation be applied to
help students "want" to learn or be willing to try something new or difficult? How
can teachers move away from the use of external rewards and instead plan for
the internal rewards that exist within the brain and body?

Thoughts & Strategies

Putting Our Knowledge About Motivation To Work In The Classroom

 The more teachers model enjoyment and love for learning, create opportunities for choice,
and develop ways to notice and celebrate hard work and success, the more they foster
intrinsic motivation.
 Intrinsic motivators include compelling goals, positive beliefs and productive emotions. We
can purposefully work to infuse these into the work we do with children.
 Creating systems that help students track and see their progress (not grades) is very
motivating.
 It’s important to help kids see the benefits of reaching learning goals in terms of “what’s in it
for them.” They need to connect their learning experience with their lives in some way.
 Creating more opportunities for kids to show evidence of their learning increases student’s
positive beliefs about themselves and further fosters internal motivation. Creating
opportunities for choice with this affects brain states in a positive way.
 Active learning experiences = increase enthusiasm & motivation
 Teachers are constantly giving non-conscious messages. It is important to match verbal and
nonverbal communication to positively affect motivation. Kids are smart. They know when we
don't mean what we say.
 Creating ways to provide a lot of self-managed feedback to help students gain evidence of
progress, success, and mastery fosters internal motivation. It also helps meet the need
of power and competence.
  Involving students in decision-making and setting criteria fosters internal motivation
and helps meet basic needs.
 Simply recognizing and celebrating individual and group achievement can replace external
reward systems and foster an internal desire to learn for learning's sake. Creating learning
experiences in which students get to experience the rewards naturally produced in the brain
is worth planning for. Simple celebrations work.
 Helping students recognize and become conscious of the the good feelings they are having
as a result of their hard work and success is helpful in fostering internal motivation. Asking
them how they are feeling after achieving a goal and then affirming those feelings helps in
this process.

What do we really want for our students?

When I first started teaching I used all the commonly used motivational tools. I used stickers and
other tokens as the proverbial “carrot” dangled before students in an effort to get them to comply,
and withheld them if they did not. Over the years my thoughts about these practices and my own
methods have changed drastically. Participating in Eric Jensen’s 6-day Teaching with the Brain in
Mind conference and supplementing that educational experience with my own reading were
instrumental in this change. I wish I had known then what I know now. Over the years I have
eliminated the use of extrinsic motivation techniques and substituted them with thoughtful planning
that meets students needs and regularly celebrate success during class. I believe, as most who
have put some time into studying how the brain learns do, that we need to do all that we can to
foster a child’s natural intrinsic motivation mechanisms and that means getting rid of the carrot (or
stickers, tokens, toys, pizza parties etc.). These are the definitions I work with.
Motivation – The force that drives us to use energy to get what we want or need.
Extrinsic Motivation is being motivated to earn a reward or avoid a punishment. “If you do/don’t do
this… you will get/not get that…
Intrinsic Motivation refers to engaging in a behavior because it is personally rewarding in some
way – doing an activity for its own sake as opposed to doing it to get something else.
Celebration is a way of recognizing success or achievement after the fact.

I believe as educators we need to think in terms of what we want for our students in the long run and
not be short sighted because, quite frankly, the use of extrinsic rewards does work with some… but
not all. There will always be some kids that don’t care about the "stuff" being offered. But all kids do
have a built in reward system just waiting to be tapped. Ask yourself these questions.
Do you want to contribute to condition the “What do I get/What will you give me if I do this?”
attitude in regard to things that actually have intrinsic value? Or, do you want to plan to help
your students reap the rewards their bodies provide naturally (dopamine - feel good neurotransmitter
associated with reward) which will then naturally motivate them to repeat the activity or behavior. Do
you want kids to learn to value the learning or the reward? Do you want students to find the intrinsic
value in participating in a physical activity or do you want to have to continually offer tokens to get
them to do it? Do you want kids to find the enjoyment and reward of reading a great book or do you
want them to do it because they will get to go to a pizza party if they read the prescribed number in a
given time period and get left behind if they don’t? Do you want students to practice positive
character traits because it “feels good to do good” or because they will avoid punishment or earn
stickers if they are kind? Do you want kids to connect positive feelings with a job well done or to the
prize they pull out of the bag? Can we, as educators find ways to celebrate success without holding
the carrot out for motivation, bribery or coercion? Food for thought… I know where I stand.

John Spencer makes some excellent points in his blog “Classroom Leadership – Rewards are like
Crack”. In a nutshell, he contends that kids are getting addicted to the rewards we keep offering and
not the behavior, activity or habit. There is definitely a better way to go about motivating our
students. Just add dopamine to the lesson plan. Dopamine is one of the brain’s reward chemical and
there are many ways teachers can plan for its release. There are two very simple ways I have found
effective. The first is one of the foundations of Becky Bailey’s book Conscious Discipline. She
maintains that you get more of what you notice. If you continuously notice inappropriate behavior
you’re sure to get more of it. If you continuously notice what you want - you get more of it. Noticing
is different from judging and it took a while but I have eliminated "good job" from my teaching
vocabulary. If this interested you, get a copy of Conscious Discipline and start practicing the skills
necessary to create change in our schools.

Imagine a class of second grade students participating in some fitness centers as an instant activity.
The kids are running from center to center choosing different activities to challenge muscular
endurance. One little girl is really working hard holding her body straight in a plank penny stack
center. I might say something like “Wow, look how hard you are working to hold your body straight in
that plank position. That takes a stick-to-it attitude and is making your muscles stronger.” Pretty soon
everyone within earshot is planking up and stacking pennies with the straightest little bodies you
could ever hope to see. And that little girl just got a shot of dopamine. And you have the opportunity
to keep it flowing. What do you bet that every time she tries that move her body is just as straight?

A second strategy is making sure to plan for celebration (as an eternal optimist I believe there will be
something to celebrate in each class period). Although there are many, I will share two methods that
I use. One of the simplest I use is with my Kindergarten class. They are always referred to as “Team
K.” When I say “Fist in the air” their little fists go up and you will hear a choral “Go Team K.” They get
all puffed up and feeling good. When the learning target has been moving into open spaces without
bumping into one another and the group was successful they hear “Fist In The Air” and I hear “Go
Team K.” BOOM – success and a shot of dopamine. Another simple celebration is “Blast O Base”
seen in this video link. This little gem was offered up as a silent auction item at one of our Maine
AHPERD conferences and I couldn’t resist. It will sit along a sideline and at the end of an activity or
lesson I will draw attention to whatever we might be celebrating and then have all the kids run and
give it a celebratory blast. Yes, you guessed it – everyone just a got a little dopamine. Pretty simple,
takes only a minute and it even has an added bonus because these celebrations are tapping
into reflexive memory.

When dopamine is released, whatever the person is doing/learning at the time is more likely to be
remembered. It creates stronger pathway for retrieval. In her article Dopamine and Learning: What
The Brain’s Reward Center Can Teach Educators, Martha Burns refers to dopamine as the brain’s
“save button.” She does an excellent job explaining how dopamine will help kids remember what
they are doing when they get a blast of this powerful little neurotransmitter. I want my students to
want more success in my class not more tokens. If I can plan to allow the brain’s reward system to
work on its own without using extrinsic motivation strategies the brain’s ability to provide its own
reward is strengthened and intrinsic motivation lives on. It takes patience but in the long run I believe
this practice will do a lot more for the individual development of my students.

1 B)

One of the most difficult tasks a teacher faces is motivating students to learn. While some students have a natural

love of learning, others arrive at a class under protest and act as if they’re being tortured rather than taught. Teachers
must find a way to motivate these challenging students.

A teacher can tap into two basic types of motivation: intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation occurs when the

student pursues learning due to their interest in a specific topic. MBA Online states that having the motivation to
execute ideas you’re deeply interested in is an important skill to have when starting a business or looking for a job.
For example, a student who wants to be an astronaut when they grow up will exert extra effort into their astronomy

class just because they’re interested in the topic. Giving positive feedback frequently can instill intrinsic motivation, as

can using the students’ interests to teach a subject. Another example would be a student interested in dinosaurs will

have a greater interest in learning about types of plants if they are given a chance to set up a dinosaur habitat with

plants they’ve chosen to support dinosaur life.

Extrinsic motivation comes from outside the students. A student who makes an A and gets $10 for it may want to

make more A’s to make more money. Because of this, many teachers set up reward systems for reading a certain

number of books, for completing homework or for successfully finishing learning tasks. While this may sound like a

falsified form of educating children, the end result may be the same; students end up learning the same amount of

material regardless of how they are motivated to do so. However, research into the long-term gains, or lack thereof,

with such an approach should caution teachers against overuse.

Both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation have their benefits and drawbacks. Intrinsic motivation can be difficult to tap

into because of its personal nature. In some cases, students may be dealing with difficulties in their personal lives

that use up their energy and leaves little room for academic enthusiasm. In those cases, some interest in the subject

can often be encouraged by a teacher willing to show concern for the student. One first step is to listen to your

students, get to know them, their interests, and their dreams. Use these “data” points to tailor curricula to help hook

them into the topic.

Cultivating and maintaining intrinsic motivation is a life-long skill that all students can develop. Although grade school

is typically a place for students to learn fundamentals of a wide range of topics, teachers must also help students

learn how to learn. Understanding research methods, how to analyze texts, and ways to study for tests are all just as

important as learning the Pythagorean theorem. Adults often have tasks at work or home that must be done even

though they will receive no outside payment or recognition. Learning to be satisfied with a job well done is an
important part of growing up.

Extrinsic motivation is much easier to establish once the teacher knows what the student is willing to work for.

Whether it is stickers, a bit of extra free time or some sort of prize, students usually have a reward they value. An

extrinsic reward system can teach students to put in hard work in order to get a reward, another life skill. However, in

jest, a downside to extrinsic motivation is that it can get expensive for the motivator. The real problem, though, is that

extrinsic motivation works in the short term, but it does little to light (and keep lit) the fire of curiosity that leads to life

long learning. It may be that the book a teacher bribes a student to read hooks them into reading, however, there is

little guarantee of this. Better to find books that link naturally with the student’s interest and provide multiple entry
points for that student to engage in the topic in a meaningful and relevant context.

For the teacher balancing the pace of a fast moving curriculum with a desire to make learning fun and engaging,
perhaps the best motivation system is one that provides both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. While students may

get tangible rewards for their work, they also get positive feedback and chances to explore their own interest within
the scope of their subject. For example, a teacher might let students choose their own topic for a research project

related to their subject area. Hopefully students get intrinsic motivation from picking a topic they are interested in and

having a choice in how they will approach the topic. When students display the final product of their research, they

get the extrinsic motivation of a grade and perhaps even the positive attention of their peers.

While motivation is often a challenging task for teachers, the rewards of having students who are interested and

eager to learn make the hard work worth the effort. By combining intrinsic and extrinsic motivators, teachers can help
students learn the subject at hand as well as valuable life skills.

Think back to really vivid memory. Got it? Okay, now try to
remember what you had for lunch three weeks ago.

That second memory probably isn’t as strong but why not?

Why do we remember some things, and not others? And why do memories
eventually fade?

How memories form

When you experience something, like dialing a phone number, the experience
is converted into a pulse of electrical energy that zips along a network of
neurons.

Information first lands in short term memory, where it’s available from
anywhere from a few seconds to a couple of minutes. It’s then transferred to
long-term memory through areas such as the hippocampus, and finally to
several storage regions across the brain.

Neurons throughout the brain communicate at dedicated sites called

synapses using specialized neurotransmitters. If two neurons communicate
repeatedly, a remarkable thing happens: the efficiency of
communication between them increases.

This process, called long term potentiation, is considered to be a mechanism

by which memories are stored long-term but

How do some memories get lost?

Age is one factor. As we get older, synapses begin to falter and weaken,
affecting how easily we can retrieve memories.

Scientists have several theories about what’s behind this deterioration, from
actual brain shrinkage, the hippocamus loses 5% of its neurons every decade
for a total loss of 20% by the time you’re 80 years old to the drop in the
production of neurotransmitters, like acetylcholine, which is vital to learning
and memory. These changes seem to affect how people retrieve stored
information.

Age also affects our memory-making abilities. Memories are encoded most
strongly when we’re paying attention, when we’re deeply engaged, and when
information is meaningful to us.

Mental and physical health problems, which tend to increase as we age,

interfere with our ability to pay attention, and thus act as memory thieves.

Another leading cause of memory problems is chronic stress. When we’re

constantly overloaded with work and personal responsabilities, our bodies
are on hyperalert. This response has evolved from the physiological
mechanism designed to make sure we can survive in a crisis. Stress chemicals
help mobilize energy and increase alertness. However, with chronic stress our
bodies become flooded with these chemicals, resulting in a loss of brain cells
and an inability to form new ones, which affects our ability to retain new
information.

Depression is another culprit. People who are depressed are 40% more likely
to develop memory problems. Low levels of serotonin, a neurotransmitter
connected to arousal, may make depressed individuals less attentive to new
information. Dwelling on sad events in the past, another symptom of
depression, makes it difficult to pay attention to the present, affecting the
ability to store short-term memories.

Isolation, which is tied to depression, is another memory thief. A study by

Harvard School of Public Health found that older people with high levels of
social integration had a slower rate of memory decline over a six -year period.
The exact reason remains unclear, but expects suspect that social interaction
gives our brain a mental workout. Just like muscle strength, we have to use
our brain or risk losing it.
There are several steps you can take to aid your brain in preserving
your memories

 Make sure you keep physically active.

 Increased blood flow to the brain is helpful.
 An eat well. Your brain needs all the right nutrients to keep functioning
correctly.
 And finally, give your brain a workout. Exposing your brain to
challenges, like learning a new language, is one of the best defenses for
keeping your memories intact.

https://www.quora.com/How-does-a-memory-form-in-your-brain

3.
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