Chapter 7: Activating Prior Knowledge and Increasing Motivation

I hope you will all forgive me, because I am going to go on a bit of a tangent here. And it's probably going to be incoherent. You've been forewarned.

I had a bit of an epiphany the other day, whilst I was doing my social studies unit plan. I chose the topic of economics because it seemed like it would be easier than any of the other choices. That's probably not the best reason to choose a topic, but time was winding down and I had to pick something. To be honest, I have no real interest in economics. Sure, I'm worried about the economic crisis, but if you say "economics" to me, you're not going to get the same reaction that you'd get with say, "Jane Austen" or "Harry Potter." In the former case, my eyes are likely to glaze over, but in the latter I can become quite animated.

And yet, something interesting happened as I was doing my project. I got interested. I mean, really interested. I cared about the lessons I was planning, I wanted to make them fun, and I even had a bit of fun myself. I read about Free Trade and wanted to know more (do not dare ask me about it, because I don't know much). I had fun planning my culminating assessment. Sure, it was work, and I would have rather been watching television or reading, but it wasn't the worst thing I've done.

And here's what I realized: I've always been like this. Over my school career, I've managed to get interested in many things I never thought I would have liked, usually because the right project sparked my interest. This made me wonder if this is a particular trait of mine, or if this could work for all learners.

I like to think that it could work for all learners. I hope that by giving my students the right projects and using the right strategies to activate their prior knowledge and spark their interest, that they can have the same experiences as me: deep motivation and pride in something I've enjoyed and done well.

I particularly liked the CORI strategy in the book (although the acronym is horrible). I like the idea of project-based learning and culminating projects. I am all for anything that makes the students feel like what they are doing is important, things that feel more like real life and less like school.

I think motivation is a huge issue with teachers. In many of my observations, I've watched teachers teach a lesson, never once trying to get the students interested or explain to them why they are learning a particular skill or topic. If we as teachers reflect on our own likes and dislikes, we will realize that we don't like every topic we teach. How can we expect our students to be any different. And let's be honest: if we don't like something, or are even just apathetic about it, meaningful learning is not going to occur. Sometimes no learning at all will occur. Our students have to be motivated, and we have to do everything in our power to make even the most boring topic interesting.