From Learning to Motivation Environments

Course details

Learning and motivation are old and complex topics. Schools everywhere in the world are concerned about the school engagement of children. The main public policy answer has been learning environment: competences, child centeredness, technology and premises. Motivation is a complex concept and hard to keep up. Schools, governments and researchers are still debating the proper way to motivate students. Principals, teachers and experts see the lack of motivation in school students, in rich and poor countries, as one if not the main obstacle/challenge for learning. And yet, there is not consensus about the best way to create motivation environments. There are two sides of the story or two models: the business one and the pedagogical one. Should teachers and schools use the pedagogical way at schools knowing that students will, sooner or later, have to live, as adults, in a fiercely competitive business world? I conclude by theorizing about the relationship between intrinsic and instrumental motivation from a game-theoretic perspective to try to shed some light about the type of motivation that schools and teachers should try at schools in order to prepare young students to the fiercely competitive world of adults.