My Online/Blended Education course asked participants to watch Daniel Pink's video on motivation and relate it to our work as educators.
Notes -
Notes -
- Rewards narrow our focus and restrict our possibilities. The answer isn't right in front of us; it's on the periphery.
- Right brain matters. Do problems have a clear set of rules with a single solution? No. Answers are surprising and not obvious. We're all dealing with The Candle Problem. The If-Then Rewards don't work. This makes Daniel Pink crazy.
- Higher rewards often lead to worse performance. This is not a socialist conspiracy here.
- Get $ off the table and then give autonomy.
- FedEx days = You have 24 hours to work on anything you want and then you have to deliver something overnight. 1/2 the new products from Google in any given year are the result of this radical autonomy.
- Daniel Pink describes autonomous use of time in a business world model that a teacher could never have: Teachers have to be present room 7:15-2:55 each day in an assigned room.
- Science knows the drive to do things that matter creates more and better output. Carrots & Sticks are lazy.
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| The Candle Problem |
Q1: How might you incorporate autonomy, mastery, and purpose into your professional situation?
A1: Enthusiasm and a conviction that this matters - the very characteristics Daniel Pink has about what he is saying - can spur internal motivation. Giving kids choice so they can use their right brain can lead to internal motivation.
Q2: What sort of results would you expect if you made this change?
Q2: Well, before the results come in, I would have to be comfortable with uncertainty. How could you know what results to expect? Isn't that the whole point - that the unknown will surface and this unknown could be amazing, such as Google Earth was - both amazing and unexpected?
Final Word
The biggest takeaway for me is to be comfortable with the unknown. So much of what I could do next year as an English 9 teacher could be very prescriptive. Pink's message is a caveat to me to respect students as independent learners, processing knowledge without any input from me.
Final Word
The biggest takeaway for me is to be comfortable with the unknown. So much of what I could do next year as an English 9 teacher could be very prescriptive. Pink's message is a caveat to me to respect students as independent learners, processing knowledge without any input from me.
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