Motivation

      Few juniors and seniors that enroll in pre-calculus and calculus courses have major motivation issues. They have been successful students in the past, are used to making good grades, and expect to continue doing so. Most have plans to go to college, and are therefore motivated by the need for a good-looking transcript and maybe by the need to be mathematically prepared for college level classes. Most are willing to put forth a fair amount of effort to be successful, although they might not be used to needing to put forth much effort at all to earn an A. So, in my (very fortunate) situation, motivating students is not a huge problem.


     However, fostering the right sort of motivation is a concern. Most of my students are very motivated by performance goals rather than mastery goals. They will work hard to get an A, but getting that A is all that concerns them. They don't care so much if they really learn the mathematical concepts or not. They have the mindset of wanting me to show them exactly what to do, then mindlessly manipulating the symbols exactly how I showed them, and then receive an A.


     A few students can be convinced that they need to understand these concepts so they can be successful in college math classes required for their major. But many students correctly note that they will "never have to use this stuff." How do I motivate students to want to learn math for its own sake, even if it might never be "used" in their "real" lives? I can show them various real-world scenarios where the concepts are useful, but often these examples are just as uninteresting to the students as the math.


    The reading suggests strategies such as letting students be more autonomous with their education. I am skeptical of how the details of this could really play out in practice, although it is an idea that intrigues me.