There is probably a difference between internal goals and external goals. If I must do something merely because someone else says so, then adjusting effort to barely meets standards is the optimal strategy.
When I do something for myself, meeting someone else’s standards is irrelevant. For example if my dream is to make computer games, but at the computer science lesson writing a bubblesort gets me the highest grade, I will not stop at barely writing the bubblesort.
Even when I make the computer games, because I want so, there is a difference in what exactly motivates me. If my goal is to make people happy, I will focus on improving quality, fixing bugs, new ideas, a lot of content, etc. If my goal is to make money, I will focus on selling, advertising, networking, making things addictive, etc. By watching where I try really hard, and where I barely meet standards, you will see where is my passion.
So it seems the best teaching strategy would be to change the students’ point of view, to align their internal goals with the external goals. Which is million times easier said than done. In some environments it’s actually impossible.
(And perhaps this is a useful tool for introspection. If you have problem finding your goals and passions, ask yourself: In which situations are you doing more than barely meeting standards? This is where your heart is.)
There is probably a difference between internal goals and external goals.
This is a useful distinction. I only stressed the difference between internal and external motivation, rather than goals.
And yet, the problem with aligning goals is one that you recognized. From what I have seen, students are bombarded with external goals, which are usually measured by an emphasis on grades and test scores. This tedious and rigidly structured experience creates a “treat everything like it’s tedious and therefore unimportant” field. Then when introduced to a new area, even outside of an educational environment, people fail to recognize that it is a topic that they might even enjoy or have a passion for. The ability to develop internal goals is basically extinguished.
to align their internal goals with the external goals. Which is million times easier said than done. In some environments it’s actually impossible.
Indeed, since research shows that adding external goals sometimes tends to actually destroy the students’ internal motivation, if they already had any...
That is the paradox: If your students have internal motivation, don’t give them external motivation, because that would harm their internal motivation. On the other hand, if your students don’t have internal motivation, you have to give them external motivation, otherwise nothing ever gets done.
Most people when talking about education understand only one part of it, and then they suggest techniques which work well in some environments, and fail in different environment. And usually instead of realizing their mistake they insist that if you just did more of the same thing, it would work everywhere.
For example there are creative and motivated students who achieve impressive results when left on their own… and then you have people insisting that every student should be left on their own and that it will magically bring a new generation of super-motivated super-creative superheroes… and instead of that, we mostly get grade inflation and unemployable young people.
Agreed, the formation of this habit and expectation is a main danger of adjusting effort to barely scrape by. If it works well enough, to be rewarded for passing (or even excelling) according to a standard, then it can become the default approach. Though it may be good enough to complete a task, it may not be the optimal approach in other aspects of life. For that matter, the current standard or average may not even be up to the level that we actually want to accomplish.
There is probably a difference between internal goals and external goals. If I must do something merely because someone else says so, then adjusting effort to barely meets standards is the optimal strategy.
When I do something for myself, meeting someone else’s standards is irrelevant. For example if my dream is to make computer games, but at the computer science lesson writing a bubblesort gets me the highest grade, I will not stop at barely writing the bubblesort.
Even when I make the computer games, because I want so, there is a difference in what exactly motivates me. If my goal is to make people happy, I will focus on improving quality, fixing bugs, new ideas, a lot of content, etc. If my goal is to make money, I will focus on selling, advertising, networking, making things addictive, etc. By watching where I try really hard, and where I barely meet standards, you will see where is my passion.
So it seems the best teaching strategy would be to change the students’ point of view, to align their internal goals with the external goals. Which is million times easier said than done. In some environments it’s actually impossible.
(And perhaps this is a useful tool for introspection. If you have problem finding your goals and passions, ask yourself: In which situations are you doing more than barely meeting standards? This is where your heart is.)
This is a useful distinction. I only stressed the difference between internal and external motivation, rather than goals.
And yet, the problem with aligning goals is one that you recognized. From what I have seen, students are bombarded with external goals, which are usually measured by an emphasis on grades and test scores. This tedious and rigidly structured experience creates a “treat everything like it’s tedious and therefore unimportant” field. Then when introduced to a new area, even outside of an educational environment, people fail to recognize that it is a topic that they might even enjoy or have a passion for. The ability to develop internal goals is basically extinguished.
Indeed, since research shows that adding external goals sometimes tends to actually destroy the students’ internal motivation, if they already had any...
That is the paradox: If your students have internal motivation, don’t give them external motivation, because that would harm their internal motivation. On the other hand, if your students don’t have internal motivation, you have to give them external motivation, otherwise nothing ever gets done.
Most people when talking about education understand only one part of it, and then they suggest techniques which work well in some environments, and fail in different environment. And usually instead of realizing their mistake they insist that if you just did more of the same thing, it would work everywhere.
For example there are creative and motivated students who achieve impressive results when left on their own… and then you have people insisting that every student should be left on their own and that it will magically bring a new generation of super-motivated super-creative superheroes… and instead of that, we mostly get grade inflation and unemployable young people.
Yet getting into the habitual expectation that this amount of effort is not vey great is a bad thing.
Agreed, the formation of this habit and expectation is a main danger of adjusting effort to barely scrape by. If it works well enough, to be rewarded for passing (or even excelling) according to a standard, then it can become the default approach. Though it may be good enough to complete a task, it may not be the optimal approach in other aspects of life. For that matter, the current standard or average may not even be up to the level that we actually want to accomplish.