Focus for today

•Intelligence
•Motivation
•Scepticism
Motivation
 Intelligence
Research by Dweck indicates the
importance of how children think
about their own capability

Motivational Processes
affecting Learning 

Psychologist Carol Dweck of Columbia University

DWECK C (2000) Self-theories: their role in motivation, personality, and development Hove: Psychology Press

Motivation

Growth versus fixed minds

 Intelligence
‘Entity Theory’
•Fixed capability
•Learned helplessness
 Intelligence
‘Incremental Theory’
Believe they are able to learn and
improve;
•Motivation
•Resilience
•Risk taking
•Independent
 Intelligence
Teachers and:

•Entity theory
•Incremental theory
 Intelligence
Teachers need a broad and balanced
understanding of intelligence
 WARNING

Some Students may find the next

slide disturbing…
 Motivation
Learning Requires Work
 Motivation
Motivation Learning
3.1.2
use communication methods,
including a variety of media,
to promote and develop
positive relationships and to
motivate and sustain the
interest of all learners;
 Motivation
What is Motivation?
 Motivation
Motivation is an ‘internal state’
that arouses, directs and maintains
behaviour.
‘Internal energy’ that helps to
achieve a goal.
 Motivation
Motivation is related to Context
POLITICAL CONTEXT
Personal Child Factors
Children’s skills and Stratigies-
Coping
Goals of Educations
system
Classroom Relationships Learning Outcomes,
Curriculum Teaching/Learning Processes social consequences

Teacher skills and stratigies-Organization

and Management
Personal Teacher Factors

Social Context
 Motivation
Extrinsic Motivation
And

Intrinsic Motivation
 Motivation
Intrinsic Motivation
Motivation comes from
within…
 Motivation
Extrinsic Motivation
Motivation comes from
without…
 Motivation
Intrinsic and Extrinsic motivation
operate on separate ranges, they
are independent of each other.
 Extrinsic motivators
Rewards
Sanctions and Punishment
Choice
Grades
Teacher Praise
Intrinsic motivators
Interest
Enjoyment
Goal focus
Mastery
Satisfaction
 Myth about Motivation?
Teachers motivate students....
Teachers motivate students...
Wlodkowski 1986: Teachers do
not motivate students. The best
we can do is make conditions as
attractive and stimulating as
possible. Student’s perceptions,
values, personalities and
judgements ultimately determine
motivation.
Teachers motivate students...
Thorkildsen 1988: By matching
tasks to ability under meaningful
and positive conditions , including
teacher encouragement, we can
encourage students self-
motivation.
 Motivation
Teachers must consider the
motivation of their students:
•Stimulate Curiosity, Contextualise
•Teacher attitude to subject
 Motivation
Teachers must consider the
motivation of their students:
•Consider age of students
•Use Varity of techniques
•Value Intrinsic motivation
 Motivation
Motivational processes have
been shown to influence :
How well they acquire new
skills and knowledge
 Motivation
Motivational processes have
been shown to influence:
How well they transfer their
existing skills and knowledge
to a new situation
Motivation
 Motivation
Abraham Maslow

Maslow’s Hierarchy of
Needs
Needs approach
 Motivation
Humanist approaches
emphasize a higher order
incentive to achieve and
excel which comes from
within a person.
 Motivation

Maslow, A (1968) Towards a psychology of being. Princeton NJ: Nostrand

 Motivation
Approaches to Learning
and Motivation in HE
ENTWISTLE N (1981) Styles of Learning and Teaching; an integrated
outline of educational psychology for students, teachers and
lecturers. Chichester: John Wiley (0 471 10013 7)
RAMSDEN P (1992) Learning to Teach in Higher Education London:
Routledge (0-415-06415-5)
 Motivation
Approaches to Learning:
Surface Learning
Deep Learning
Strategic Learning
Deep Learning
• Actively
subject
Motivation
seek to understand the material / the

• Interact vigorously with the content

• Make use of evidence, inquiry and evaluation
• Take a broad view and relate ideas to one another
• Are motivated by interest
• Relate new ideas to previous knowledge
• Relate concepts to everyday experience
• Tend to read and; study beyond the course
requirements
SurfaceMotivation
Learning
• Try to learn in order to repeat what they have
learned
• Memorise information needed for assessments
• Make use of rote learning
• Take a narrow view and concentrate on detail
• Fail to distinguish principles from examples
• Tend to stick closely to the course requirements
• Are motivated by fear of failure
Strategic Learning
• Intend to obtain high grades
• Organise their time and distribute their
effort to greatest effect
• Ensure that the conditions and materials for
studying are appropriate
• Use previous exam papers to predict
questions
• Are alert to cues about marking schemes
 Motivation
Reflect on your own motivation:
•Different Courses
•Different Stages of your degree
programme
•Different contexts: University, work,
hobbies
Brain Gym
 www.braingym.org

What is Brain Gym ?

Brain Gym® is an educational, movement based
programme which uses simple movements to
integrate the whole brain, senses and body,
preparing the person with the physical skills they
need to learn effectively. It can be used to
improve a wide range of learning, attention and
behaviour skills. Educational Kinesiology and
Brain Gym® are the result of many years of
research into learning and brain function by an
educationalist, Dr Paul Dennison PhD, from the
United States. It is now used in over 45 countries
and is recognised as a safe, effective and
innovative educational and self-development tool.
 Rationale
• Movement improves learning
• Much of the movement focuses on
improving communication between
hemispheres
• Specific neurophysiological
explanations given
• Water consumption also aids this
process
“hook-ups shift electrical
energy from the survival
centres in the hindbrain to the
reasoning centres in the
midbrain and neocortex, thus
activating hemispheric
integration … the tongue
pressing into the roof of the
mouth stimulates the limbic
system for emotional
processing in concert with
more refined reasoning in the
frontal lobes”
 Brain Gym in UK schools
• 1700 teachers trained by one body
(Osiris)
• Widely in use in Wakefield LEA

• In use in over 40 countries

• 43 Brain Gym consultants in the UK (to
complete all BG courses costs around
£3,000)
Dr Ben Goldacre: He has written
the weekly Bad Science column
in the Guardian since 2003
I've invented a couple of my own exercises. First,
trace the fingers of your right hand from the top of
your back to the bottom, one vertebra at a time.
Once you have reached the last vertebrae, slide your
right hand underneath it. This is your arse. Now
place your left hand on your right shoulder (which,
apparently, improves brain laterality). Look directly
down. This is your elbow. Do not confuse the two.

I'll be putting the exercise into book form along with

some generic illustrations of smiling children. I'll call
it Brainless Gym. And I am available to teach it to
other teachers at exorbitant rates throughout June
and July.
‘Stopping and doing some exercise is good;
lying to children with bonkers pseudo-
scientific explanations is bad’
Brain Gym is a set of perfectly good fun
exercise break ideas for kids, which costs
a packet and comes attached to a bizarre
and entirely bogus pseudoscientific
explanatory framework.
A Cautionary tale
 Science Vs Pseudoscience (Beyerstein, 1995)
Science
• experiments
• controlled conditions
• public accessibility
• peer accountability
• gold standard = RCT
• ‘expert opinion’ = a low
grade of evidence
• anecdotes not acceptable
as evidence – “the plural of
anecdote is not data”
Pseudoscience
•tries to appropriate prestige of
science
•lacks rigorous controls
•secrecy/role of ‘experts’ / gurus
•reliance on anecdotal evidence
•Their explanations are ‘usually
contradicted by well-established
scientific knowledge’
•their own findings ‘rarely, if ever,
withstand scrutiny by competent
critics’
A Cautionary tale
Our detailed and systematic
review found that ‘... there is no
evidence that the model is either
a desirable basis for learning or
the best use of investment,
teacher time, initial teacher
education and professional
development’
(Coffield et al. 2004a: 35).
How more explicit could we have been? Let me try
harder this time. There is no scientific justification
for teaching or learning strategies based on VAKT and
tutors should stop using learning style instruments
based on them. There is no theory of VAKT from
which to draw any implications for practice. It should
be a dead parrot. It should have ceased to function.

Coffield (2008:32)
A Cautionary tale