By Deb Gordon & Meg Stentz
Competency Collaborative’s annual capacity-building Summer Institute kicked off in July. More than 100 NYC educators gathered together for three days to dig deep into the theme of Reigniting Student Motivation. In case you missed it, check out some of the big themes from each day.
CC Summer Institute Day 1: Reigniting Students’ Purpose for Learning
We’ve heard it all year: after returning from remote learning, students’ are disengaged in traditional school. The reasons are myriad, and as adults we’ve felt them too. Some mornings it’s overwhelming just to put on hard pants again. Leaving the house sometimes still feels tinged with danger: so many germs on the train! And after two+ years of living under the stress of Covid, with friends and family falling sick at regular intervals, the day in and out of work can seem less important. We all know this, and have felt it deeply. And so, with the summer to regroup, again, what do we do this year to reignite students’ purpose for learning?
First, a check in with what we know motivates us and what motivates students.
Here’s our community’s sense of what motivates them, and what motivates their students:
A poll from CC Summer Institute shows what motivates “you” (participants) to learn, vs. on the right, what motivates your students to learn.
FUN jumps out right away! Fun! Our community lifted up how opposed that feels to the pressure many are feeling to make up for the “learning loss” that happened during remote learning. Of course, the narrative of learning loss perpetuates the myth that students did not learn during the pandemic, it undermines their resilience and their stamina. It devalues the time teachers spent checking in on the wellbeing of their students, sometimes in favor of a prescribed curriculum. It erases the meaningful and engaging lessons teachers were still able to prepare across space and time. But anyway. Our community calls here for a return to fun!
Second, let’s remind ourselves what the research says supports students’ purpose for learning.
First and foremost, students value learning when the learning is relevant to them and their lives! It seems obvious, and yet, how often do we teach lessons because they’re in the scope and sequence, but we ourselves find them boring? It’s not easy to push back against curriculum and traditions of schooling, but it’s what our students need from us. They need and deserve education that matters deeply to them, and supports them in crafting the life they want to lead.
Young people come to us having already received abundant messages—both implicit and explicit—about who belongs in school and for whom education is relevant. Our job is to create learning environments and experiences that invite all students’ complete selves, with their myriad racial, cultural, and personal identities. For many of our students, this involves deliberately counteracting negative messages they have received that undermine their sense of belonging, relevance, and connection to school.
We must also remain mindful of the pandemic’s uneven impact on individual families and communities, particularly marginalized communities. Some of our students are facing difficulties that involve much more than a perspective shift, and finding relevance in what one is learning in school may pose extra challenges. Everyone is motivated to learn something; if students are not engaging in deep learning and motivation appears to be the issue—as opposed to external obstacles—we need to support them in finding a reason to show up fully. We need to find out what it takes for them to want to be here with us, excited to learn.
With all this in mind, what would it look like, in a classroom, to put what we know about motivation and purpose for learning into practice?
The Competency Collaborative recommends these strategies to reignite students’ purpose for learning.
Learning outcomes reflect relevant, transferable skills.
Durable, transferable outcomes are inherently more motivating to students. It’s much more clear to a young person how they might use the skill of “Argue” in their real life than the skill of CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST.6-8.1.A: Introduce claim(s) about a topic or issue, acknowledge and distinguish the claim(s) from alternate or opposing claims, and organize the reasons and evidence logically.
2. Students see themselves in the curriculum.
How can students understand the utility of the curriculum in their lives and how can curriculum support students’ understanding of their own racial, cultural, and other intersecting personal identities? What would it mean for students to be building the skills they want to create the future they envision for themselves? For one poignant example, check out this blog post about Brooklyn International High School’s Theater of the Oppressed.
3. Students engage in authentic tasks.
Applying knowledge and skills to real-world questions sparks curiosity and creativity. And when projects are oriented towards community—both in how students work together as a learning community as well as by addressing what matters in their broader communities, it fosters and leverages students’ desire to connect and make a difference.
It is heartwarming to know humans are most motivated when our learning is connected to a purpose larger than ourselves, one that contributes to community, however that is defined by the learner. We want to know that what we are learning is relevant and useful—both in our lives and the lives of others. And we want learning to be fun! These, after all, are the reasons we entered into education, because we care about young people and about creating a more just and loving world. When we remember the passion in ourselves and tap into the passion and joy in our students, they are inspired to show up fully and be here with us, learning together.
Want to know more about student motivation? Check out What we know about Purpose and Relevance, from the Student Experience Research Network.