Alfie Kohn

          There are three main things that motivate students: collaboration, content, and choice.       Students are motivated by collaboration because the social part of school is huge to secondary students. When students are able to bounce ideas off each other, they will benefit because they will be learning more. Think about when you have a question in a class. You think about it for awhile by yourself, trying to get the answer. When you cannot figure it out, you ask a peer and collaborate on the concept together. Sometimes it helps to have a peer explain something rather than the teacher. Students listen to their peers and sometimes teacher information goes in one ear and out the other.

            Students are motivated by content because they want to know things that have a connection to their lives. When students can make connection with content to their daily lives, they will be motivated to learn more since they can relate. “Learning is decontextualized” (Kohn 216). When things relate to one another, students understand much better. Also, students do their best when the tasks they are working on are neither so easy as to be boring nor so difficult as to cause anxiety. Students need to be engaged and intrinsically motivated in tasks that reach their developmental stage, just beyond their current cognitive level (Kohn 220). When the learner’s interests are the focal point, rather than having the teacher as “the sage on the stage,” the student will be motivated to learn since they are doing the learning themselves (Kohn 219).

            Students are motivated by choice because they want to have control. If you “deprive students of self-determination, you deprive them of motivation” (Kohn 221). When students have a say in what they are doing in a classroom, they will be more likely to do their work and learn. Teachers can offer students guidelines and the students can choose what they want to do. Teachers can also ask students how they should approach a task that needs to be learned/addressed and the students can choose how to do so. Giving the student choice, or at least the perception of choice, motivates them since they think they are in control. (This idea also relates to Zull.)             
            Intrinsic rewards are what motivate students to learn. Collaboration, context, and control are three rewards that motivate them. Extrinsic rewards, such as grades, do not motivate students to learn. They are destructive of interest and achievement since they focus student’s attention on their performance. Instead, students need to be encouraged to focus on their work and not their performance. (This idea also relates to Zull.)

            Active learning is another thing that motivates secondary students.

            When teachers do not give reasons for assignments, do not set examples, and reject mistakes, students are not motivated to learn. Instead, teachers need to do the opposite and elicit students’ curiosity in order to see motivation results.