Motivation, Learning, and Technology

Embodied Educational Motivation

J. Michael Spector, Seung Won Park

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781134979325
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Éducation
• Subtopic: Éducation générale

Motivation, Learning, and Technology is a fresh, thorough, and practical introduction to motivational research, theories, and applications for learning and instruction. Written for both instructional designers and teachers, this foundational textbook combines learning design and learning technologies, synthesis of current research and models, and practical advice for those looking to improve how they motivate learners. Building from existing models in an interactional, holistic approach, J. Michael Spector and Seung Won Park guide readers through all steps of educational motivation, from designing a motivation plan through implementation and assessment.

part I

ORGANIZING FRAMEWORK AND INTRODUCTION

one

A Holistic Model of a Person

To study and at due times to practice what one has studied, is this not a pleasure.

(The Analects of Confucius, Book 1)

Given the complexity of human nature, in order to provide a compelling and coherent account of educational motivation, it seems appropriate to start with an account of what it is to be a person. There are of course many accounts of being human, dating back at least to the time of written language and Confucius (circa 500 BCE). Rather than review the various treatments of the essential characteristics of being human, we begin with three short scenarios that encapsulate and represent the role that motivation can play in connecting the cognitive, affective, and behavioral aspects of human nature. These are not invented stories; rather, these events actually occurred as those present could best recall. Each story is intended to emphasize a particular human characteristic (behavior, cognition, emotions, etc.) that is relevant when considering motivation. The stories are intended to highlight human characteristics that shape motivation and reflect the view adopted herein that motivation is best treated as a holistic construct that includes cognitive and non-cognitive characteristics as well as the influences of others and culture.

Story 1

The first story involves a middle school student (Charlie) who was blind and partially deaf from birth. Charlie wanted to learn to swim during his summer vacation. A volunteer high school student lifeguard agreed to work with this student over a two-month period, three days a week, an hour or two each day. The student lifeguard was told that Charlie would probably never learn to swim but just being in the pool and doing something enjoyable would be good for him. The first week or two served to confirm that advice. Charlie enjoyed being in the cool water on a hot summer’s day and spent most of the time walking around in the shallow part of the pool, occasionally dunking his head under the water with the help of the lifeguard.

After two weeks of getting used to being in the water, Charlie asked in difficult-to-understand broken words and gestures when he would learn to swim. He wanted to swim. The lifeguard then decided to take Charlie’s desire seriously. He started with kicking strokes with Charlie holding on to the edge of the pool and the lifeguard holding Charlie in a horizontal position. The following week, this was practiced in deeper water away from the edge of the pool. At the end of the first month, Charlie had learned how to stay afloat for a few minutes by kicking his legs while in a vertical position in deeper water, with the lifeguard nearby to encourage him. The adult supervisor of the swimming lessons was somewhat surprised at Charlie’s progress and encouraged the lifeguard to continue.

To shorten the account, at the end of the second month, Charlie was able to swim, somewhat awkwardly, from one side of the pool to the other—not the length of the pool, just the width which was about 10 meters. The last day involved the parents of the children who had been taking swimming lessons. Charlie’s parents came and were amazed to see him swim the width of the pool, which was something that no one really thought he would be able to do. Sometimes one can do more than is expected by others. In this case, the local swimming community (including the lifeguard and swimming supervisor) supported Charlie’s strong desire to learn to swim.

The point of this story is to emphasize the role that desire plays in achieving outcomes. Desires need to be heard, accommodated, and supported to the extent that is reasonable in a given situation.

Story 2

The second story is much more technical and involves a software engineer who was responsible for the simulation software installed at an Air Force base training air-to-air combat pilots. The planes carried transponders with were used by ground-based systems to track and update their location, continuously relaying the information to a computer located on a mountaintop in southern New Mexico, which then relayed that information along with information from the various aircraft (e.g., firings of a simulated missile at another aircraft, aircraft locations, etc.) to a central processing system located at the Airbase (three computers operating in parallel). The entire exercise was digitally recorded and played back on a fifth graphics computing system after the pilots had landed. This ACMI (Air Combat Maneuvering Instrumentation) training system was highlighted in the movie Top Gun (see www.cubic.com/Global-Defense/Training-Systems-and-Services/Air/Air-Combat-Training).

As it happened, each ACMI had one software engineer and one hardware engineer responsible for the five computing systems that comprised ACMI. The ACMI went through a number of upgrades, all developed initially at Cubic Corporation offices in San Diego and then shipped to each location to be customized for that location by the two engineers. One of these upgrades was to display the location of the sun in the graphics computer during debriefings since pilots often disputed that a heat-seeking missile missed its target on account of mistaking the sun for the target. These pilots were so focused on the target that they could not remember where the sun was when they fired. At one location, the software engineer could not get the upgrade to work properly. The system kept crashing. There were more than 400 programs, mostly written in Assembly Language and Fortran, running simultaneously, so it was a challenge to figure out what was causing the system to crash after trying to install the simple calculation of the sun’s location and sending that location continuously to the graphics computer for subsequent display.

The software engineer called the lead software developer at Cubic to ask for advice. First he was told to make sure that a particular instruction in Assembly Language was on a double-word boundary. It was. Then he was told to check the calculation to make sure that an adjustment was made correctly when sending the location from a 32-bit processor to a 30-bit processor. The calculation was correct and had been shifted correctly for transfer, but was never transferred due to the system crashing. After multiple calls, the local software engineer was ready to quit and look for work elsewhere, as this should have been an easy upgrade. The senior developer offered support and convinced the local engineer to make a simple random change in one instruction to see what would happen. This was akin to starting over and trying to isolate the nature of the problem. The local engineer agreed not believing it would make a difference. As it happened, he simply loaded the sun’s position into the same double-word location twice, which should have had no effect as the same information would be processed in the same way (not a completely random change but focused on the general area of the problem). Surprisingly, that change solved the problem. In consultation with the lead developer, they concluded that it was not a problem with the logic or the calculation. Rather, it was a timing problem. By loading the same information twice, the different computers involved in processing so much information had sufficient time (nano-seconds) to catch up and perform without crashing.

The Air Force had a requirement that every line of executable programming code had to have an associated non-executable comment explaining the code. The original comment in the repetition of the instruction was “I have no clue what difference this makes”; the engineer later changed the comment to “this repeated instruction is required for timing purposes.” Sometimes, problems are not what they seem to be. Sometimes, a more knowledgeable mentor can help one gain such understanding.

The point of this story is that persistence plays an important role in achieving desired outcomes. Persistence is easily eroded after multiple failed attempts to succeed. A supportive mentor can help a less experienced person keep trying with simple suggestions and words of encouragement. Human will and interest are not fixed and can easily erode; the will to succeed (sometimes called volition) can and should be reinforced, especially when a learner is struggling.

Story 3

The third story involves a multi-grade rural school in West Java, Indonesia. Given the expectation that this volume will be widely circulated around the world, it seems appropriate to include an example involving different cultures. In this case, Indonesian culture is involved, and the story emphasizes the role that culture can play in educational motivation.

Two American professors were part of a team put together by USAID (the United States Agency for International Development) to help Indonesian universities develop the capacity to provide four-year college education to all teachers, as required by a law requiring that all teachers in Indonesia have a four-year college degree by 2015. Universitas Terbuka (UT—the open university of Indonesia) was a critical institution in this requirement. As the effort progressed, the American professors were asked by UT to help them develop training for multi-grade teachers, since multi-grade schools were quite prevalent in rural parts of Indonesia. The Americans said they would be glad to help but knew very little about multi-grade schools, and UT instructors responsible for multi-grade teacher preparation had no direct experience with multi-grade schools either.

A trip to a rural school in the mountainous Bogor district of West Java was planned. The two American and four Indonesian professors left Universitas Terbuka (just south of Jakarta) at 5 a.m. one morning, traveling in two minivans. After two hours on paved roads, they turned down an unpaved road (loose use of the term “road”) and drove for another half-hour, before arriving at a small village. They then walked two miles to another village where the school was located. When they arrived, the headmaster greeted the group and offered three different kinds of bananas and tea. After a half-hour discussion about the school, the visitors broke into three groups—two for the 5th/6th grade room, two for the 3rd/4th grade room and two for the 1st/2nd room. The school in total was comprised of those three rooms, the headmaster’s office, electricity (with outside wiring), and no computers. There were about 50 students in each room (about half in each grade), and each room was equipped with a blackboard and chalk. There were three students to each desk with one notepad, one pencil, and one straightedge. The expectations of the group were initially quite low given that environment.

Each team spent several hours observing each of the three teachers in the different classrooms. In the 5th/6th grade room, the teacher had a two-year degree and was enrolled in the UT in-service teacher preparation program to earn the required baccalaureate degree. He was teaching science (a botany lesson) to the 6th graders and math (a geometry lesson) to the 5th graders. When he was teaching botany, he would look at that half of the classroom while the 5th graders worked quietly on pre-assigned problems. When he then directed his attention to the 5th graders, the 6th graders proceeded to work quietly on their assigned problems.

The 5th grade geometry lesson was easy for the American observer to follow as it was visually demonstrated and involved finding the perimeter of a polygon that was formed by having a right triangle added to a rectangle. The learning task was to find the perimeter of the polygon. In order to solve this problem, the students needed to know the Pythagorean theorem (the hypotenuse of a right triangle is equal to the square root of the sum of the squares of the other two sides). This seemed surprising to the observer as this is not usually taught in American schools until the 8th grade (see www.corestandards.org/Math/Content/8/G/B/6/). This was a 5th grade group of students in a poorly equipped rural...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• PART I ORGANIZING FRAMEWORK AND INTRODUCTION
• PART II MOTIVATIONAL SUPPORT FOR LEARNING
• PART III MOTIVATIONAL SUPPORT FOR INSTRUCTION
• PART IV CONSOLIDATING EMBODIED EDUCATIONAL MOTIVATION
• PART V ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
• Index