Notes

TEACHER: Hi there. Welcome to "Taking Control of My Academic Success." Today we're going to be discussing motivation. What is it that drives you? Why do you get up and go to school every day? Why do you try extra hard at practicing your instrument or your sport? Today we're looking at understanding motivation.
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This is Andrea's story. Andrea likes school and has always been a fairly good student. But lately, Andrea's feeling pressure from her parents to do well in school, get a job, and participate in clubs after school. All of this should supposedly get Andrea into a good college and help her reach her goals.
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But Andrea isn't sure of what she wants. She feels like she is going through the motions of school and life just to satisfy her parents and her teachers. Well, I know a lot of us feel the way Andrea does. So today when we look at motivation, we're going to compare the different types of motivation and then explain how motivation affects academics and how well you do in school.
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But first of all, let's define motivation. Today we're going to talk about motivation in this way. Motivation is a force that influences your actions. It's why you do what you do. And why is it important that we understand motivation? Well, motivation drives everything we do. It's why we get up in the morning. It's why we floss our teeth.
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It's why people study the planets or why people investigate a cure for cancer. Without motivation, without reasons to do something, nothing would get done. And there's two different types of motivation, intrinsic and extrinsic. And those are the two types that we're going to look at today.
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As I go through the lecture, I want you to think about why are you at school today. So the first type of motivation is intrinsic motivation-- intrinsic meaning internal. Intrinsic motivation is the motivation that comes from inside the learner. How do you motivate yourself?
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What is it that is so important to you that makes you do what you do? Intrinsic motivational statements include your own personal goals, your own values of what's important, and goals that reflect your interests. Things like this-- I want to learn to text faster to communicate with my friends.
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The reason why you're learning to text faster is because it's coming from a purpose inside you. It's what you think is important. I want to explore Africa to learn about my family's history. I want to work in a ski shops so I can learn to ski better. Or I want carpentry skills to build a skateboard ramp. All of those statements reflect what is important to
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the learner and what the learner wants. Now when we identify what we want, intrinsic motivation, people who activate this intrinsic motivation are more likely to put in additional effort. They'll try a much harder to succeed and get what they want. They'll also try different ways to succeed. You've heard of before, if at first you don't succeed, try
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an try again. There's many different ways to go about solving a problem. And when the motivation is intrinsic, we're sure to seek out those resources to solve our problem. And also, people with intrinsic motivation are persistent. They won't stop until it gets done. It's so important to them that they feel they have to keep
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going and keep trying and doing better with every single step. Now to look at Andrea's goals in an intrinsic way-- remember, these are internal. These are what are important to. Her goals are to speak Spanish and go to school abroad in Spain. It's something that she wants to do.
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She wants to learn to sew and make her own clothes. And she wants to learn to type for real. And I know I have that the goal as well. I tend to poke at my keyboard. But those are all very real goals that are very important to somebody. And why she wants to do them is intrinsic. It's important to her.
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Now there's another side to motivation. And that's the extrinsic motivation, the external motivation that we all feel. Now extrinsic motivation is motivation that comes from outside influence or circumstance. It's things from the outside that motivate you, like your parents, your teachers, high expectations or even failures. They can be stressors or they can be pressure put on you to
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do certain things. And it doesn't always have to be school related. Extrinsic motivation includes requirements and goals and values of other people or society and how they affect you. And remember, I said it doesn't always have to do with school. But in this case, we say, "I study to get good grades.
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That's something that we do in school. Maybe we study to get good grades because their parents expect it. It's what our teachers want for us. We want to keep up with our friends that are getting good grades. Or outside of school, "I need to go to college to get a good job.
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Because how am I going to pay my bills? How am I going to get a good job and make money and provide for my family? Or "I need to work to make money." Again, how are we going to get the things that we need in our daily life? How are we going to pay for gas in our car? How are we going to pay for our cellphone bill? These are all outside influences that
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affect what we do. So this extrinsic motivation. Now extrinsic motivation is usually immediate. It's something that we should do right now, or right this second, or in the near future. And it's usually in the form of a given reward or penalty, such as a reward might be graduating from school if we complete our school's requirements.
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Or we can go out Friday night if we do our chores. And of course, there's the opposite side of that, which is the penalty. If we don't get good enough grades or meet the minimum requirements of our GPA, we won't graduate. Or if we don't help Mom with the dishes, she won't give us money to go to the movies later. So that's another very important part of extrinsic
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motivation. There's always some kind of consequence, whether it be positive or negative. Now for Andrea, her extrinsic motivations statements look like this. Andrea studies to get good grades because that's what her parents expect of her. And she wants to make them proud.
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And she goes to Spanish club meetings because their parents expect her to participate in after school activities. Now she's probably seeing these activities as a forced action by her. She's feeling pressure from other people to do these things. So because it's not intrinsic, she's not trying as hard at them as she possibly could.
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But let's look at changing those extrinsic pressures and that extrinsic motivation into intrinsic. And it might sound cliche that parents and teachers just want the best for you. But as it says on the slide, aren't their goals your goals, too? There's really a way to look at the pressures that we feel in school and understand how they help us in our overall
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academic plan and later in life. Let's look at these statements that combine extrinsic and intrinsic motivation to get what it is the learner wants. "I learn dates for a history test. And when I pass history, I'll graduate." So he's learning dates for a history test, because that's what the teacher expects of him. That's what the school expects him to do.
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But when he passes history, he'll graduate and go to college or move out of this house or get a job or whatever it is he wants to do after graduation. So there's a great example of how you can change an extrinsic pressure, or an extrinsic motivator into an intrinsic motivation and an internal personal goal. "I want to complete work assignments well in order to get a raise to buy a car.
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I learned this computer program as a job requirement. But this added skill will get me the raise I have been wanting." Again, we're getting an extrinsic motivator. We're getting pressure and requirements from outside. But it's helping us meet our own goals. "This added skill will get me the raise I've been wanting." And the last one, "I complete my reading assignments.
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But more reading will increase my vocabulary. And I will become a more compelling speaker." So how is Andrea going to convert these extrinsic motivators, this external pressure, into a positive, internal goal? Well, Andrea will get good grades and participate in Spanish Club so that she can get a scholarship to the study abroad program and go to school in Spain.
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So she's doing things that others might expect of her. But she's doing them in a way that will help promote her own goals in ways that will benefit her. Now when we're handling these external and internal, or these extrinsic and intrinsic motivators, there's a lot of things we need to keep in perspective. Because in life, let's face it, we face stress and pressures from other people and expectations from others
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and within ourselves. But it's really important to keep those rewards and penalties and consequences in perspective. Make sure you're doing things that motivate you or that benefit you, even if they are under the expectation of others. If it's very important that your parents want you to go to a certain college but you just don't want to go to that
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college, instead of feeling the stress and feeling the pressure and letting it affect your school work, maybe you can find some kind of compromise on where you go to school. Also, this takes into account your own goals and their outcomes. Remember, we're changing those extrinsic factors into our intrinsic motivation.
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So even though there's things that others expect from you, you can always turn them around to help benefit you and what you want. And lastly, don't be afraid of failure. Sometimes we're experiencing so much pressure and so many high expectations that it's easier to just not do anything. And that's really where we've lost all motivation.
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So don't be afraid of failure. And don't be afraid to set high expectations for yourself. And really try to set goals that are important to you and that are attainable. Now when you're really down in the dumps, and you really want some kind of motivation, I love quotes. And I'm going to be using them a lot in this unit.
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Motivating yourself, here's a quote from Vince Lombardi. "The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength and not a lack of knowledge, but rather in a lack of will." When we have that internal motivation, remember, we're more persistent. We're more likely to try hard to succeed. And thus, we're more likely to succeed.
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So whatever it is you want, whether it's getting better grades or doing better tests or making the sports teams that you're trying out four, make sure it's important to you and you have found internal motivators to help you reach your goals. So what's going on with Andrea? Let's check in. Understanding a little bit about the different types of
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motivation has been very useful for Andrea. Andrea can now sort out what is important to her and what is important to everyone else on the way to reaching her own goals. She knows that if she sees motivated to do well in school, not only will Andrea make her parents happy, but she will have pride in herself as well. So I hope you take some of the information you learned today
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about intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and apply it to your own life to help you reach your goals in school or out of school. And before you end your activities for your online session today, I want you to think about the reasons why you are at school today. What are your intrinsic motivators? And what are your extrinsic motivators?
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And what are your goals with that information? So I hope you have a great day. And I will see you soon.