Internal/Affective Factors

I'm going to just focus on a few of the key internal motivational factors that I see used in our classroom. First of all the role of effort is emphasized often in this class. We are told that we will get out of it what we put into it. This is shown through our blogs, as well as the idea that we do not have points in the class. If we do the blogs, we can ultimately fight for our grade based on the effort we put into the blogs to show our understanding of the content. Similar to effort, we are given a choice. We are allowed to chose whether or not we would like to do the assignments on time, or even do them at all. Ultimately, we are the ones hurting ourselves by not doing them. Relevance is another topic that constantly comes up. We are never doing something that doesn't have a purpose, everything is relevant to the course and is something we can eventually use in our teaching careers. Based on the blog posts that were due last class, it seems everyone is interested in the material we are being taught. Mostly because it is SO different from what we are used to. In the end, it is our beliefs about learning that are being challenged and altered. This new idea of teaching/learning forces us to challenge what we already know and the ideas we've already formed to create a new way of thinking.

Obviously these are just a few. But looking at the list of motivational factors, these were the ones that really jumped out at me that are used in our classroom.