I'm Brian Myers. I'm Mike Ritalik. I'm Becky Hiread. And this is Al pellets a podcast featuring tips for ad teachers We are your agricultural education resource across the web sharing research based tips and tackling the tough questions facing agriculture teachers every day Welcome back everyone.
We are currently working through our mini series unpacking the principles of smart teaching in this episode We're diving into principle four of how learning works, which is about a topic close to every teacher's heart Motivation will explore why students believe in their ability and the value they place on a task or crucial for engagement And we'll talk about the factors that spark intrinsic motivation and what you as a teacher can do to cultivate a classroom environment where students are eager to learn So get ready to dive deep into what truly drives our students Feel like that's a big promise for us to deliver on in 20 minutes. I Think if we could figure that out we could write a book we could retire and Books have been written on this idea I like I'm not gonna pretend like in my notes It doesn't say motivation and we start talking about goals and I have the actual notes to Like insert the eye roll Okay, let's talk like because I think it can be a really frustrating topic It feels like something that we're constantly working for in our classrooms that there's no magic bullet There's not this thing that's just like all right. Let's go We've got it was all figured out and so it's something that we're just constantly navigating can kind of feel like a moving target So so I think as we think about that as we think about this like deep dive into what's really driving at students I hope over the course of the conversation. There's a little bit of freedom to think like to recognize Hey, here's some just just general reminders about how our students might be thinking what our students really value and Similar to some of our other principles acknowledging the gap between what we value as teachers and what our students value as ninth graders Well, I think there's a continuum too that makes this complicated and I don't know if we can categorize it as maturity or what have you but Motivation for elementary middle school and high school students and adults all look different as well And so and students are maturing at different levels And so you could have a classroom of freshman sophomores and some candle different levels and higher levels of motivation techniques or extrinsic or intrinsic motivation versus other ones and so we as Teachers agricultural teachers we have a captive audience and so it seems like there's all kinds of different ways that we have to motivate and and probably multiple Motivative type approaches because it's not gonna be a one-size-fits-all for a class that we have I think it's right Mike and it's mission on simple But one of the things that really stuck at me as I was reading through this and thinking about this chapter was Remembering that motivation fluctuates even within a single lesson in a single day No, and it's just I think we're gonna start me out is so often and I've done this work with folks It's like you need to have an interest approach to your lesson and it's kind of like okay The answer is to get that motivated.
Well, check and then we're going to let the disconnect okay Work to keep them through that, you know, and I think I'm often like from right in the speech or something I'm gonna give you think throughout there we are given that talk throughout the Throughout your you know, 20 minutes, 30 minutes speech whatever about how you're gonna reengage the group for all kind of things But I may have failed I wasn't that intentional with my lesson plans and when I'm like classes of teachers like it's not Just a one and done check thing. It's like how are you keeping people motivated? But then also are you motivating your students? But how are you gonna say motivated because there's some things that we may not be super excited about teaching them we We thought our list to do so that was a big reminder for me pretty simple I know but that was a good thing for me to remember I think it I hope is validating for folks who are listening just that the energy It actually does require to teach that I don't get to motivate them once they begin the lesson and they're motivated and they stay motivated And it's just like teaching would be so easy if I never had to actually teach for our students can be so great kind of I'd miss them a lot So I was like I think what what you bring up brings up this really really important piece of just this constant It's not just because it's not just motivating around the content It's also how do I key into what's actually happening with my students energy and what my students care about and what they're interested in Even if I don't particularly care about it that much because if I'm not meeting them where they're at and those ideas Probably not gonna actually bring them to my motivation level when it comes to the content Yeah, I think that's too much we rely on grades and if we're in a formal school setting, you know It may matter because we're gonna be a great time to be on the test But I think when I go back and think of the teachers and had the biggest impact on me and the things on there That teacher helped me as a student see why something mattered They helped me see that and so I'm like they this important.
They show me this is why this is important to me And that helped me better understanding more excited and more motivated about the topic of the day I think that's a huge huge point and a couple things really came to mind as Becky was talking to and one is not necessarily It's really frustrating when you scratch something down really fast and you can't read your own writing Writing game That helped bring the point back the point is how often do we end up teaching a topic in our classes? That's not our favorite topic. Oh, I hate teaching this math or I hate teaching You know this this point and what do we do we tell our students that right off the bat? Oh, I don't you know We I'm gonna hate this you're gonna hate this but we're gonna do it anyway And what type of motivation what type of factors is that really gonna have and that certainly happens quite often as well and then The other piece that Becky was talking about that I gave some thought to and how as we gain some more experience with our In our classrooms and we're teaching and we're always gauging motivation when we're in our classroom and we could have a lesson plan We could have something going and you may be providing some content and lecturing and all of a sudden you can see all students kind of Tailing off not paying attention, you know eyes are getting droopy or what have you and it's like okay I got a pivot and all of a sudden you're doing an activity or you know You pull something out of the toolbox that you have it's like okay We're gonna you know now.
Let's diagram this or let's do something that's gonna engage them again and help bring that motivation back So a couple things that came to mind I think I also want to go back something Brian said about just that why it mattered And I think Brian you said something that's really important that I hope we picked up on it mattered to me Yeah, it wasn't and me the students not me the teacher And I think about the number of times I sit with every service teacher We're talking over their lesson plan and their question is something like have you ever thought about that plans on the window? Have you ever thought about your garden and your back? Some of these kids like I had students the first time they'd ever even seen a seat was when we planted our school guard like no They have not given any thought to the plant on your window. Do you know what your kids are thinking about?
Is it lunchtime yet? What time is the game tonight? When it's practice did I grab my shoes? Does that like that girls got cute?
These like getting in getting on our students level about what actually matters to them asking those questions spending that time in When when they want to tell you things because they do like I was just observing a seventh grade like they I'd so much They wanted to say that would really would really help if I could just take five minutes to okay This is important to you this matters to you I can find a connection here. There's some way that we can connect based on what you are telling you is important in your life right now And not only the the white matters and I think that's fundamental and and one of the things that I Always have to remind myself and remind student teachers about it's not always about me as the teacher It's about the students and so figuring out and making those connections to things that they know understand and why it matters to them And not so much about why it matters to me or you know We have to meet these standards and meet these expectations from an educational standpoint But I think that's certainly important to them, you know tying into that Thinking about the autonomy that we can provide students and How that certainly affects motivation as well as the not only the why but the relevance behind what we're teaching and so that students can see the Relevancy related to that as well as and the final piece is really competence You know when they feel more competent in the work that you're doing and the content that you're talking about certainly They're gonna be more motivated to learn and continue to grow in those areas as well And so in addition to and the fundamentals of the white matters autonomy relevance and competency I think the big piece big pieces of those they give some thought to You bring up the great point is always my good the section of the book on autonomy and student choice And this is something that I'm always on paper looks really good I need to support people like you to help me understand what I was talking about waiting to give students choice in there and I get Well, we can give them more choice it Age and that motivation and that sense of ownership in there But then I go back to my head and I see so many of these schools in the future You know they've got these these plans laid out that every day they got to be on they got to talk about the topic to get through To be all the standards to do that so how do we talk about and think about the opportunity to provide students choice while still getting The daily plans done that we need to get done question to me or is that a rhetorical question? I mean either way I would love to know the answer I always throw like I'm talking about both sides my mouth when I'm talking to teachers about how do you stay on your pacing guide Like you have students choice and how do you manage that? What do it look like and maybe it's helping us all this teachers understand it It may be students choice and smaller things rather the bigger things like the whole lesson where you're going absolutely And I think that's where I think too often teachers initially think about choice on what I would call a macro level It's like okay, we're gonna talk about nutrition you decide what you're gonna learn about nutrition or reproduction or what have you And I think we need to think more about what's choice on a micro level and so allowing students It's like we got a project around reproduction and you can either draw it You can develop a model or you can write about whatever that that topic is or that content and allow students the flexibility Knowing that all students are still going to meet or achieve a certain expectation and and the learning outcome that you've set for those students And might even be able to see relatively use the relatively the same rubric because of the the content that you're trying to evaluate at that time And so instead of giving them this wide open wild west approach I think it's more of a micro level is a good place to start But almost even advocate for a micro micro level like like a choice words great Especially if you're doing standards based grading or like this is what you need to meet here all the ways you can demonstrate I'm looking that you know this content like that's great There are also I think even smaller opportunities that students might feel even more when it comes to choice as far as thinking about even How they work thinking about can what are the acceptable alternatives here?
So if we're gonna have some work time Do you want to stay working at your desk or would you like to sit on the floor? And like I know it that's not feasible in all classrooms and in all setups Do you want to work with part like do you want to work with partners or do you want to work individually? Do you want to work in groups of three or groups of four like really micro level choices where either one is acceptable to you as the teacher But students really start to like when they get that because even in that chunk of time Just a number of choices your students could make that one you don't have to then as a teacher But also just those build quickly to your students feeling like if they have they have some autonomy in your classroom I think it's a long example. I appreciate you teaching me today on that.
It made me think back I'm gonna go away I'm talking a lot on this podcast about my own high-class teacher He taught using the problem solving method and so what would happen if we come up here? We didn't find the problem and we didn't have all the questions that we thought we wanted to answer to solve the problem And then he let us do it. What's these problems? Do we want to address first?
And so we picked where we went and looking back Guided us to which question we were gonna be first. I mean It wasn't a choice. I really didn't have a choice But we didn't know it in a moment. It was a guy in a few those sort of things I think that was was a good model of doing that It's an opportunity to look back at our learning objectives and really think you know Do they am I asking them something like is my goal broad enough?
I think kind of to your point with your former iKeter like if my goal is broad here the things that are all the acceptable ways We're gonna meet this goal We have so many opportunities to really key into students curiosity about how we how we go about meeting Apple Yeah, and I think to that point and part of what the this chapter is really trying to help us realize is that and then the problem solving Method and the steps and that's probably a good example But you know rather than saying we're gonna do problem solving it's it's doing it in a step-by-step process And so we do one step we can celebrate the small wins there and when move on to the next step make some decisions and continue to move on And so celebrating small wins and helping students see the progress or maybe Step-by-step progress on projects and those kind of things important as well rather than just get them You know here's a semester-long project go do it when you have time without any guidance You know have it build up to a semester-long project and the students don't even realize it's a semester-long project until the last two or three weeks When they're putting all the pieces together Another thing that this chapter that really kind of intrigued me and we talked about a little bit of this podcast as well is the difference between motivation and just a reward and The idea that sometimes we use just rewards these more external extrinsic kind of things But then try to remind us that if we can build curiosity in a sense of belonging in our students That's that's sometimes even more powerful of a motivator than some sort of reward afterwards like okay You need to know this or you need to know this or that when you take you know I remember in fourth grade teacher all the time is you've got to know this for your fifth-grade teacher They just won't tell you this I'm like that's that's more of a threat that a reward kind of thing. Yeah So I think I think having a supportive environment to your point Brian is fundamental and huge and and You know allowing students kind of that risk reward being able to fail but support them Help them learn where they made those mistakes and be able to go on so that we can foster kind of a growth mindset or a continuous improvement mindset However, you want to do that but helping people realize that you know it is okay And we can grow and we got a supportive environment to make that happen I think in that same vein. It's also stepping out of this I think we can tend to get caught up in this motivation conversation Which we haven't so far in this idea is it is it intrinsic or extrinsic is ever more to function like I think this principle in particular gives us a room to step out of that to recognize that What are students value? How successful they think they will be in the environment that Mike was just talking about with opportunities to take risks being set up to fail and grow Those all change our students behavior Single one of those changes how our students will interact not just with the content in our classroom, but like our whole classroom So I guess that brings us strategies.
Yeah For a little confirmation that we got close to answering Brian's question, but I'm not sure if we just went so far off track or If he was just so dumbfounded by what Mike and I were able to share I look forward to people reacting to it and sharing their thoughts on our social media platform. Oh nice plug Out away help us out So I think kind of some key takeaways here's what are some of these strategies as we think about our student motivation We said we were gonna unlock all this we didn't actually say this but man it kind of it sound like we were gonna unlock all these secrets of motivation and Your life will be great your students will be motivated ready to roll But I think Brian touched on one really early when it came when it comes to establishing that value and thinking about why does it really matter to Our students and really keying into their interests engaging with authenticity for where you're at and I think Almost moving beyond this interest approach to make sure that it's not shallow and that this this interest to this value is Deep it's relevant and it's really contextually centered in in our students lives not necessarily our content It goes back to something we talked about Previously with our with with our expertise it can be really hard to get out of why it's important in our broader expertise But how like a real critical skill here is being able to dig into why is this important to you? Yeah, I think from a real practical standpoint and I think we as egg teachers do a great job of this but you know Connecting lessons connect collecting the things that we talk about to careers and opportunities down the road and where interests lie for students and so could be careers could be hobbies quite often egg teachers will point to maybe some some fellow students in class that have an SAE project in that area that topic and You can help the classroom kind of come alive and help connect the things that they already know or have a relationship to and Think those are all important things when we can connect and help the classroom come become more alive. I think that just sets up early positive Environment positive idea and our students that they can do this when we think about those those things align what's happening in our classrooms with the world They challenge students it helps foster these like how do we give some early successes to kind of get the ball rolling?
How do we have those clear expectations and that targeted feedback all of those things without any like without necessarily any grades or Carrots or sticks like tells our students you can do it and sometimes I think that's like the number of times I think our students don't get to hear like you can do it and not just flip service But like everything about my classroom says you can do this. Yeah, we all need to hear that I got a good reminder for all of this to be able to do this. Thank you. Thank you for picking up.
Thank you for picking up on that. Yeah, I got you I think that brings us around to the end of our discussion on motivation and I think one of the things is we think about just okay What's this golden this golden ticket here? We're really kind of thinking about how we foster a motivated classroom beyond a reward system How do we really end the things that we do and how we and how we plan and how we engage students tell them? I believe in you.
I know you can do this because it's about helping students see the value and what they're doing giving them the and really giving them the confidence To succeed in helping understand that value. So as you plan your next lesson Considered thinking about how you can make that content relevant to your students lives ask yourself How can I provide opportunities for them to feel a sense of competence and control? So thanks for joining us in our next episode will be tackling principle five which really gets into the importance of practice and feedback So we'll see you next time We hope you've enjoyed this episode of Al pellets check out our website for more information on this topic and to learn more about our guests Follow us on Facebook Twitter and Instagram stay connected and be sure to subscribe to our podcast So you'll never miss an episode for Mike and Becky. This is Brian here by the out pellets saying Thank you, and we look forward to seeing you again on another episode of alpels tips for egg teachers