Reflection: How much of the responsibility for motivation and engagement rests with the educator?

Reflection: How much of the responsibility for motivation and engagement rests with the educator?

This reflection is a critical response to a question posed by Maggie in response to a reading critique I posted for online activity 3.1, which really challenged my thinking about who is responsible for motivating and engaging learners. Motivation is defined by Brophy (2010, p.3; as sighted in Hartnett, 2019) as "a theoretical construct to explain the initiation, direction, intensity, persistence, and quality of behaviour, especially goal-directed behaviour." Spring et al. (2018, p.1488) conceptualises engagement "as the quality and quantity of energy exerted" by a learner.

To answer the question above 'How much of the responsibility for motivation and engagement rests with the educator?', I feel the theory of transactional distance discussed by Hartnett (2019) makes a good point where autonomous learners rely less on a teacher than learners who are less autonomous. This example I've experienced with different learners every year in my classroom, where some learners have excellent self management skills and can adapt to many learning situations - requiring less teacher input and guidance. In contrast, there are learners who find self management very difficult and are heavily dependent on the teacher for guidance and a lot of the time, praise.

Based on my observations and experience in a primary school classroom, the students who are more reliant on the teacher and possess less learner autonomy, motivation and engagement in learning does rely heavily on the teacher. These students require a lot more support and are easily disengaged if they feel a task is too hard or they don't understand it. This is where motivational strategies and teaching approaches are very important.

Behaviourist strategies mentioned by Bonk & Khoo (2014) such as praise and certificates, appear to be highly valued by learners who possess less learner autonomy. Constructivist and socio-cultural strategies are also really important for encouraging less autonomous learners to build their self management skills and use others as role models for what these skills look like (Bonk & Khoo, 2014). These two theories also promote learner control, fostering independence (Hartnett, 2019).

Therefore, a short answer to the proposed question in my personal opinion is yes - I do think the teacher is responsible for the motivation and engagement of their learners (in a blended primary classroom environment), as they decide upon the how the learning is designed, implemented and maintained in their environment as well as how they build a positive rapport with and amongst the learners in their classrooms. 

The following artefacts are screenshots of Feedback from Maggie in response to my reading critique:



References:

Bonk, C. J., & Khoo, E. L. (2014). Online motivation from four perspectives. Adding some TEC-VARIETY : 100+ activities for motivating and retaining learners online. Open World Books.

Hartnett, M. (2019). Motivation in distance education. In M. G. Moore & W. Diehl, C. (Eds.), Handbook of distance education (4th ed., pp. 145-157). Routledge.

Spring, K., J., Graham, C., R., & Ikahihifo, T., B. (2018). Learner engagement in blended learning. In M. Khosrow-Pour (Ed.), Encyclopedia of information science and technology (4th ed., pp. 1487-1498). IGI Global.

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