Chapter 11...Motivation

Motivation is the quality of wanting to do something.  Cognitive motivation is the quality of wanting to learn something. These are my interpretations of the text of course but I believe I am on the right track of the material.  The factors in motivation that I felt were the best for my life have been personal interest.  I was raised on a tobacco and beef farm which instilled in me training and interest in these two fields of study.  I always used my background as a guide whenever I could on how to or how not to do a task.  Often in Agriculture courses hands on experience can be the best way to demonstrate mastery of a subjects materials.  The personal interest of learning how to trim trees or promote bush forms was high for me because I was already  anticipating a career in horticultural maintenance which demonstrated a value to me in my mind, therefore an added motivation.  Also to point out a different type of interest based motivation reminds me of my undergraduate experiences.  I took a microbiology class and then followed it up with botany classes for my major and noticed how similar the infection of a cell by a bacteriophage was to the infection of a cell by a virus.  The classes were 2 years apart but it helped me see similarities and differences which I used to help me demonstrate the subject matter, being how a cell is attacked by a virus.  I see this as a situational interest that motivated me to see the differences and similarities which motivated me to learn the subject matter.

All of these different types of motivation are experienced at different times and I believe it is up to the teacher to find the one that works for each kid.  Maybe like a different key to unlock each kids mind in a  different way.  Most kids are very interested in making money so I would try to teach kids how to trim bushes and make some money for themselves.  Using the value based interest approach to motivation my Agriculture class could promote interest in the students.