Still Driving

One of the references made in Pink's talk about motivation was to a company that held 'Fedex Days' - one 24-hour period per quarter where employees are free to collaborate and work on anything they wish, as long as they have something to deliver to the team at the end of the time period. Other companies have tried similar programs as a way to motivate staff.

Naturally, I thought of applications to education. Could we somehow allow students time to explore an area of interest and set their own criteria for success? Would they find it motivating, and heighten their interest in learning?

The payoffs could be huge, especially when it seems like so much education is rather de-motivating. A couple of quick thoughts:

- a careful but flexible structure would be needed; many kids might be willing to direct their own learning but may not have the tools or the road map on how to do so;

- it would have to be sustainable; there are far too many 'one-and-done' activities that follow a simplistic recipe, resulting in little more than a nice diversion once in a while; a staff sometimes leaves a workshop fired up about something and rush to share it with the students, but they lack the mindset needed to go beyond that initial step.

Drive

I picked up a book on my to-read list, Drive by Dan Pink. Pink gave a talk last evening and previewed some of the big ideas from the book.

The title refers to what motivates people - biology, reward punishment and fulfillment. There is a focus on autonomy, mastery and purpose as motivators. Like his other books, it is written with a business framework in mind, but will have application to education as well.

The coming weeks will likely find me processing the content here.

School and Competition

Just a quick link to a friend's blog about grading . . . Mickey has laid it out as well as I have seen.

Back In Touch

Midterms, the holidays and New Year's are now past and we face the cold winter months ahead. Even though the calendar says this is a new year and a new decade, those of us in education feel differently. It's still the old year, it was just on hiatus.

There are some benefits to a long break in the school year as we have just experienced. The classroom is a little less cluttered, there is renewed energy for assessing and working towards goals, and there has been time to add perspective to our planning and teaching.

An early 2010 benefit is the opportunity to attend a talk by Daniel Pink, author of A Whole New Mind, who will be promoting his new book on motivation. Though not an educator, Pink's writing has influenced my thoughts how we should be teaching kids today, and even inspired me to create a wiki for teachers based on his work. Alas, it has lain fallow for some time, but maybe the combination of a new year and a talk on motivation will inspire me to push this website forward.