Engaging Instruction vs. Informative Entertainment II
Written on 6:52 PM by Christian Olson
Recently I've started thinking about this again. What with my Educational games class, books I've been reading, and guest lectures I've attended, it seems to come up a lot. Anyway, today I heard from the famous David Merrill about whole-task instructional and the first principles of instruction (which has spawned the first principles of motivation-awesome!) and he said something that I really liked. I don't remember the exact quote, but the gist of it was that the most motivating part of instruction aren't how fancy the handouts/multimedia are, how well the instructor demonstrates the information, or anything else; instead the most motivating part of instruction is learning. Learning! How crazy is that?
I happen to completely agree with this. One reason why is a book I've been reading called Crucial Confrontations (my bathroom reader Du Jour). The books states that if you reward people for already expected behaviors with extra things (money, candy, time off), it works for a little bit, but doesn't have a lasting effect. Instead, the task itself is the most motivating aspect. For example, I decided to try this out with my ever-difficult potty trainee that I live with. She has refused to go potty for months now and we have all but given up. We tried prizes, candy, prize, special trips, yadda yadda yadda, but nothing has worked. In fact, she completely hates the experience and has refused to even look at her potty.
Keeping in mind that the most motivating component is the the task itself, I decided a new approach. At certain times of the day I just sit on the potty next to her. She goes potty, I help her do her duty, and then I help her clean the potty and herself. That's it! No praise, external rewards, or external motivation. It has almost brought me to tears. She's done it a few times now and each time I'm amazed. I'll let you know if it continues, but so far I feel like I'm seeing a miracle.
Another example of this I've seen recently is in my education gaming class. The game designed by the previous game class was about early 20th Century poetry. It was geared towards middle school students and was created to help instruction that has 0% engagement from student previously. (In fact, when I heard the topic, my head also immediately hit my desk as I feel instantly asleep).
The designers created the game with the instructional objective in mind and hoped that it would be motivating or at least interesting. Also, they used a electronic game format that is older 80% of my college campus: Interactive Fiction. (Here is the demo of the format from my friend strongbad--it is the one that is all typed)
The point is that they didn't include all the frills of modern computer games, but instead focused on teaching the material. It was a gamble, because what if it wasn't motivation? The result was interesting: high student motivation, involvement, and learning. I don't think that you can say the game itself was the motivating factor, because student's go through a vast amount of computer games, but rarely play for more than a minute or too-unless they really enjoy them game. Also, they may have been "forced" to play the game by their instructor, but that doesn't guarantee student motivation. My teaching experience has proven to me that I can "force" students to do something, but only they can get themselves engaged and participating in their learning.
Anyway, this ramble is already long enough, but I think that this is an amazing concept: learning is the most motivation aspect of instruction.
Posted in
engaging,
instruction,
learning
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