Intrinsic Motivation: It's not about the grade.I started thinking about the effect of autonomy in Dr. Crissman’s Young Adult Literature class. She designed her class in such a way that allowed me to make big choices over what I read, how I expressed my learning, and let her students lead units. This was pretty new to me. At first I found it challenging as I tried to “meet expectations to get an A.” Slowly, I began to relish the freedom. I did research that I thought was interesting, came up with creative ways to respond to literature, and pushed myself to create things I was proud of and could use for things besides the class.
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Drive: The Surprising Truth about What Motivates UsAfter Dr. Crissman’s class, I decided to read Daniel Pink’s book, Drive: The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us and I became very interested in autonomy as a variable in Pink’s motivation formula. I began to wonder how much autonomy middle school students could handle, what that autonomy would look like in a 6th grade language arts classroom, and what affect this new freedom might have on my students’ literacy.
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The Best Reason to Increase Autonomy in School:
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