Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation

Motivation can be intrinsic, where an internal factor provides motivation or extrinsic, where an outside factor provides motivation (Slavin, 2020). Intrinsic motivation is brought on by the student’s own interest in a subject or lesson without external factors because the information being learned is of inherent interest for the student; intrinsic motivation is seen a lot in the specials/resource classes and other hands-on projects that students find fun or interesting. Extrinsic motivation is used in schools when information students must learn may not be of interest or feel useful to the student; external motivators are used; rewards like praise and prizes for successful work being done. 

Intrinsic motivation cannot be forced, but it can be encouraged through an accepting and positive classroom environment where students feel safe to try and fail, arousing the students’ interest, giving choices, and creating/maintaining a curious classroom.  

What about motivation in our students with exceptionalities? 

Think about your foundation, instructional strategies, feedback and reinforcement, and how you empower your students. 

Foundation, we’re bringing it back to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs a little bit here because we need to start with student trust through building relationships, an environment that is positive and welcoming, and a space where the student feels like they belong. Only when we have a strong foundation can we move on to effectively teach. 

Instructional techniques and strategies, we need to see our students capabilities and set realistic goals that aren’t easy but are manageable (APA, 2023) (think about how you set your own goals if you want to lose 25 pounds are you going to think about that 25 pound or are you going to break it down so you have a plan of smaller goals that leads to the big goal). Try to provide choice and agency when choosing activities or how a student will demonstrate their learning to you; a student who is dyslexic might have a much easier time explaining a historic even they learned through speaking than through a written paper, we can also accommodate a student with the use of speech-to-text. I am a HUGE believer in visuals they are part of an effective classroom, and this is especially true in a classroom that is collaborative or self-contained. 

Feedback and reinforcement that is effective is based more on the effort than the outcome, “I saw you working hard on...”, “you put a lot of effort into...”. Your feedback should be timely, while they are working or directly after (APA, 2023). If you praise a student for work completed two activities ago, they may not make the connection. Use strategic and appropriate rewards; sometimes this may look like a first, then motivational strategy. 

Finally, our goal is always to empower our students; especially with good routines we can teach self-monitoring and self-efficacy. How can we as teachers help our students not only to feel like they can do it but how they can do it on their own; we can use routine as a starter and even a visual of what we want students to do so they can know on their own what to be working on. 

Resources: 

APA. 2023. Motivation Top 20 Principles for Students with Disabilities. Apa.org. https://www.apa.org/ed/schools/teaching-learning/top-twenty/disabilities/motivation 

Slavin, R. E. (2020). Educational psychology: Theory and practice (13th ed.). Pearson.