MSU2011: Motivation

Today's topic in the MAET master class is motivation. An interesting topic. We discuss what drives people, how complex the nature of motivation is, Maslov's hierarchy of needs, the expectancy-value model, intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation, the great RSA Animate movie "the surprising thruth about what motivates us", and how to keep a balance between the skills of our students and the challenges that we should offer them (copy of one of the slides of the course..):

Motivation is a good topic for today.. it links to my thoughts about this master course. I am just a guest here, but I like to come here every morning. Why? It gives me inspiration for my research on TPACK and for the articles that I am writing at the moment in the afternoons, but it especially gives me new ideas about my own courses. The thing that motivates me most in this course is the dynamic way the students are working. They get information, they process it by listening, discussing, doing short assignments, going outside to make videos, etc. and all this not on just one topic, but on several topics that are very smartly arranged throughout the course. It's wat we in the Netherlands would call a "pressure cooker" approach: put a lot of things in a small space, let it cook and steam for a while and "voila" you get a quick, good and tasty result. And... TPACK has not been discussed (except for a very short 1-minute introduction in the first meeting), but TPACK is there. In the way the content is presented, in the way different pedagogical approaches are used, in the way the students make their assignments (each with a technology component), etc.. Very nice!