How would you feel about that assignment compared to, "In 125 words or less, Times New Roman, single-spaced, describe your ideal classroom in a single paragraph. Use proper spelling and grammar and submit by 11:59 PM tonight."?
One of my favorite quotes is "Nobody washes a rental car." To me this means that nobody cares about a thing unless they have some ownership of it. Which of the assignments below were you more likely to put in extra effort, do external research, enjoy, and remember in 5 years? I would argue, and the research would agree, that the assignment with the increased autonomy would lead to more passion, more effort, and deeper learning.
In 2003, Nix, Reeve, and Hamm did a study in which they measured the effect of 3 factors on Intrinsic Motivation. The working concpet that they were exploring for IM was explained well in the opening line of their wonderful paper (quoting another wonderful paper), "Intrinsic motivation energizes important growth-fostering behaviors, such as seeking out challenges, exercising skills, and pursuing one’s interests (Deci & Ryan, 1985b)." That definition sounds to me like curiosity! So, basically what they were studying is how these 3 factors were related to curiosity.
The 3 factors that they were testing were volition, locus of causality, and choice. To be completely honest with you, I don't understand the difference between the 3. In layman's terms, they all mean "autonomy." The study found that the combination of volition and locus of causality were the most powerful combination leading to curiosity. I would explain them by saying that locus of causality means that the student feels like they are in control of their own actions and volition means how much they feel that they are able to do what they want to do and avoid what they don't want to do. OK, now that I wrote that, I still don't know what the difference is. But that's beside the point. Either way, autonomy is important to curiosity no matter what you call it.
How can you put more autonomy in your classroom? The key to autonomy is choice. Give students choice on what book they read, how they demonstrate their learning, how they communicate their learning with you, or how they are assessed. Every science teacher I know begins the school year with some kind of science safety lesson. Mine, like many others, involved making a science poster and I hung the great ones around my classroom. The students HATED this assignment. So, one year, I said, "You can make a safety poster, you can interview someone in a dangerous career about safety, you can record a podcast about science safety, or you can write about why safety is important in a science classroom. Every single student chose the poster and they LOVED it! Some said that it was their favorite project. Literally nothing changed except that they chose it.
Sometimes curiosity and self-motivation are considered related to curiosity in a theory called "self-determination." SD is based upon three factors: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. In Daniel Pink's "Drive," he refers to them as Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose, the 3 keys to internal motivation. When I helped expand my current school expand from middle school to high school, we designed the school around these 3 principles. For example, we created a course called STEM Studio in which students had an entire year to work on one or more STEM projects that they were curious about and that had an impact on their community. Students built drones, designed aeroponics systems, created video games, and one even hosted a 10K where they gave out heart-healthy dog treats that they had created. It was invigorating to see the motivation of these students.
If you asked me what my ideal classroom would look like, it would certainly involve high levels of student autonomy whenever feasible.
pursuing one’s interests (Deci & Ryan, 1985b).
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