Reflections: RSA Animate - Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us

Video: RSA-Animate: The Surprising Truths about what motivates us 

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This video posits some interesting views about motivation that I think challenges my perception about what motivates people. In secondary school, my teachers used to “encourage” class participation and affirm individual effort by rewarding us with a plethora of different candies. Some even went to the extent of “bribing” the class with MacDonald meals.

The video summarizes studies done in MIT and by other institutions and professionals and debunks the myth of the effectiveness of traditional management tactics, which involves rewarding good behavior and punishing bad behavior. It describes a social experiment done by MIT, where individuals were given different amounts of monetary rewards for their ability to accomplish low to high conceptual thinking tasks. The result of which is summed up in this sentence: “Once you get above rudimentary cognitive skill, rewards don’t work that way (produce better results)”. Studies quoted by the video states that the research done in America and in countries, such as India, shows a strange similarities. The people receiving the medium (monetary) reward did no better than those who received low rewards. Higher incentives actually led to worse performance. All in all, the “dangling of the carrot” approach worked for simple, straightforward, algorithmic tasks. But when accomplishing tasks that required conceptual, creative thinking, monetary motivators did not work, thus proving that money is not the single most important motivator for effectiveness at the workplace.

The video then suggests 3 factors that will help motivate individuals to achieve better results at work, in terms of their performance and personal sense of satisfaction. The three factors are as follows:

 Research shows that self –directedness results in deeper engagement in the workforce, which produces better results than what traditional human resource management can accomplish. In the software company, Atlassian, employees are given a certain time every week to work on whatever they wanted, with whoever they wanted. After which they had to share the ideas they came up with at a fun meeting. The pure, undiluted autonomy given to the employees of this company resulted in more new product ideas and software fixes than could ever be imagined in the stifling work cubicles.

       Humans have the urge to get better at stuff through practice. It is highly irrational that people spend their work-free weekends practicing musical instruments which do not add to their income. However, people are willing to do it because it is fun and satisfying to them. The video lists out several business who started by people who were willing to do things for free, putting their high level thinking skills to produce services and products that will earn them nothing. The narrator discusses how this strange economic behavior exemplifies how the desire for mastery is part of human desire. When profit motive gets unmoored from the purpose motive (desire for mastery) then the workplace become uninspiring – producing bad services, lame products and may even cause people to do morally compromising things. On the other hand, successful companies are animated by purpose; individuals who are adequately challenged by a desire for mastery.

Implications for the Classroom:

- Self-directedness as an essential skill developed in the classroom.

- Students need to find their purpose and meaning in what they do in class, with the help of the teacher.

- Students can and desire to master content knowledge and skills, but how to help them to achieve mastery? By understanding how educational techniques and issues of psychology such as Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development is integral to the processes of mastery.

- If money is not the most important motivating factor in the workplace, and superficial rewards like sweets in the classroom, then what alternative forms of reward and affirmation should be used to encourage students to learn? Note to self: food for thought.

TED talks: Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity

Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity

Link: http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html?qtwh=true&utm_expid=166907-14&utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com.sg%2F

Food for thought: Some points made by Sir Ken Robinson

• His main contention: Creativity is as important as literacy!
• "If you are not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original"
• Mistakes are constantly stigmatized in school and this form of teaching seems to be educating children end their creative instincts instead of developing them.
• All over the world, the humanities (e.g. dance, arts etc) are not emphasized. As children grow, they are increasingly educated from the waist up, then to the head, and then one side of their heads.
• The purpose of public education, judging from its output, seems to be to produce university professors. Though they are not the high watermark of human achievement, the education system, predicated on the idea of academic ability seems to be driven towards creating disembodied individuals who live within their brains. 
• Public education only came about formally in the 19th century to meet the needs of industrialization. The main objective was to produce the most useful subjects for work. And so children are given benign advice from a young age to stage away from things that they like that will not get them a job in the future (i.e. dance and art). 
• The current education system advocates a protracted process of university entry and emphasizes only on academic ability, which makes highly talented and creative people think they are not, for what they do well is stigmatized.
• Based on UNESCO research, there will be more people graduating with university degrees in this century than in any other century. Degrees are not worth anything now. Jobs that used to require a B.A. now requires and M.A. etc. This is the process of academic inflation.
• 1)There is a need to recognize diverse intelligence
• 2) There is a need to recognize intelligence as dynamic
• 3) There is a need to recognize intelligence as distinct
• Example of Gillian Lynne, now successful choreographer of musicals like Cats and Phantom of the Opera: She used to be mediocre in school. Teachers could not stand her  constant fidgeting and lack of focus. It was when her mother brought her to the doctor's that they realized that Gillian Lynne was a dancer, that she responded to music very well. After enrolling her into dance school, Gillian Lynne went on to be extremely successful as she found herself with like-minded people, people who thought while they moved.
• There is a need to stop mining students' mind like how we mine the earth for commodities, stripping them from creativity. There is a need to reconstruct our understanding of the richness of human capacity. Fundamental principles for education needs to change in order for us to prepare our children to face an uncertain future we probably will never see.

Movie: "Front of the Class"

I used to tutor a kid who had a whole bunch of neurological issues which ranged from bleeding through his nose regularly to Tourette's Syndrome. He struggled very much in school because of low self-esteem and the lack of acceptance and understanding from his peers. When I watched this movie recently, it brought to mind   the struggles that he had and class discussions about differentiated learning for students who excel in different areas and how different forms of assessment can help students realize their fullest academic (and otherwise!) potential.

"Front of the Class" is a based on the book "Front of the Class: How Tourette Syndrome Made Me the Teacher I Never Had" by Bard Cohen with Lisa Wysocky. The movie presents the true story of Brad Cohen, who had to overcome the frustrating effects of Tourette's Syndrome and bias judgments of others to become a teacher. Tourette's is characterized by repetitive, involuntary movements and vocalizations called tics. It was much harder for him then because no one knew what his condition war; they thought that he was making weird noises all day because he wanted to. His teachers' ignorance created an oppressive environment in which he was constantly punished for not behaving or conforming to the standard behaviour. Distanced from his father, Brad had only his mother and younger brother to depend on. The former never gave up in searching for the scientific reasons behind Brad's behaviour and the latter would stand up physically for him to fight other kids who bullied Brad.

Brad's school life took a different turn when his high-school principal brought him out in front of the whole school and gave him a chance to present his struggles with TS and his desire to be treated with respect and acceptance. This incident changed Brad's life and gave him the vision and determination to become the teacher he never had.

I know that when I eventually go into the classroom, I will encounter students who may have various medical issues. Whether it is ADHD, OCD, TS, anorexia, bulimia, students will come in various forms and sizes and bring along with them a plethora of issues that they are struggling with. Their conditions may make it difficult to focus on their studies, or put them at a disadvantage. How will I manage my own expectations and prejudices and focus on their strengths? How can I provide a safe learning environment where they will be accepted by their peers and teachers? I believe, just like Brad Cohen,  as a teacher, I can be an advocate for my students, to show empathy to those with special needs and appeal to other students and teachers to do the same. Before making any judgments about one student, I need to fully understand their backgrounds and the root of their issues. Brad Cohen had the determination to pull through despite some of the very harsh, unkind comments that his teachers gave and being humiliated in class by his teachers. I pray that I will not be the stumbling block to my students but instead, will help them grow and shine!

QCR523 Posting 1: Purpose of Assessment

From your readings and your classroom discussions and activities, what is one principle of effective assessment that you would define for yourself as a classroom teacher?

As many of my classmates have mentioned, thoughtful assessment is integral to effective instruction in class and vice versa. Teachers should be conscious of the ways in which they and their students develop understandings and assess progress. It is critical to adapt our modes of assessment to target specific knowledge, skills and understandings identified by the curriculum; assessment is an organic component of classroom instruction and the way it is crafted to test for understanding must change to help students develop mastery in any discipline. 

If the purpose of teaching Literature is to produce critical thinkers who can interpret and evaluate language, engaging with texts rationally and affectively, then the assessment of the teaching of Literature should challenge our students in these areas. One personal principle of effective assessment that I would define for myself is to be creative yet realistic in the way I assess students’ understanding of not only literature, but the discipline as a whole. Purves points out that many teachers who craft assessment questions that do not help students tap into the "imaginative power of literary works” (20). Instead, they only require students to memorize facts about plot and character which students can easily acquire by reading online plot summaries or simplified study guides like Sparknotes. He provides a rather comprehensive overarching framework of how literature can be taught and assessed in schools, dividing it into three sub-domains, namely knowledge, practice and preference. What interests me about his framework is his emphasis on teaching and assessing students on their understanding of the literary “aesthetic”. Personally, I agree that it is important for students to develop their personal aesthetic judgement of texts and be able to differentiate, or at least consider the differences between “good” and “bad” literature. However, it is rather difficult to accomplish this in Singapore due to the general lack of a solid reading culture or background, especially in neighbourhood schools. Though schools try to implement Reading periods within the timetable, students often use these time slots to complete homework or read the same novel that they have been reading all along because they cannot be bothered to bring any new books to school! However, I believe if more emphasis and structures are put in place to encourage students to read (perhaps by giving each primary level a list of recommended books), even at the primary school level, it will help students to be more well-read, which will allow teachers at the Secondary school level to do a lot more to expand and test students’ aesthetic judgment and preferences for different texts.


One practical way in which I think I will be able to assess my students’ understanding of Literature is the use portfolios. Not only does it help students take greater ownership of their learning through the management and organisation of their own work. Students can collect all reading , writing or performing assessments that they accomplished throughout the school year. They must not only collect the final pieces of work they submit, but also attach the drafts of all their work so that they can track their own learning and development. Other test data from literature quizzes, short-answer questions can be included in the portfolio, along with the students’ reading records and even their own self-reflections about their growth as a reader, writer and appreciator of the literary arts. The portfolio will be a good tool to also show parents how their children have learnt and for teachers to assess their success in communicating the necessary skills and knowledge required for the students to obtain certain levels of mastery in Literature.