unteachable? everybody is!

[Eric Crump <wleric@showme.missouri.edu>]

I gotta share this note Russ Hunt posted to OCC-L the other day in response
to questions about how to motivate students in online-only courses. If you
accept (as I do) the premise that learning doesn't happen without motivation,
you could apply the claims below almost verbatim to teaching as well. That
is, nobody "teaches" anybody anything. "Teaching"  is a the serendipitous
coming together of teacher with student who is interested in and ready to
learn what the teacher happens to know something about. People who appear to
be unteachable are simply not interested in or ready to learn what we think
we're teaching them. They may never be! That doesn't mean they don't learn.
It means they may choose not to follow our sugggestions! 

--Eric Crump
=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Sender: occ-l@hawaii.edu
From: "Russ Hunt" <HUNT@academic.stu.StThomasU.ca>
Subject: Re: Motivating Online Students

Patrick Bjork says,

> Any suggestions on motivating students would be greatly
> appreciated.

Here's a suggestion: Read Alfie Kohn's _Punished by Rewards_.  He
makes it as clear as it could possibly be made -- with a tidal wave
of references and supporting studies -- that "motivating" simply
isn't a transitive verb.

"Strictly speaking," said Douglas McGregor, "the answer to the
question managers so often ask of behavioral scientists -- 'How do
you motivate people?' -- is, 'You don't."  (p. 181).

"How do I get these kids motivated?" is a question that not only
misreads the nature of motivation but also operates within a paradigm
of control, the very thing that is death to motivation." (199)

What do you do?  You create a situation in which there are real 
motives for getting those assignments in -- not marks, consequences; 
not arbitrary gold stars, but reasons the writer might actually want 
someone to _read_ that text.

                                        -- Russ