In this new series, we’ll be exploring different insights into education with Classcraft co-founder and physics teacher Shawn Young. Today’s topic: How does motivation affect the way students learn, and what can teachers do to set them on the right track?

Why is motivation important for student learning?

Shawn Young: Motivation is the key to learning. No one learns anything unless they want to. That’s true for everybody. One of the main challenges for educators is getting their students to want to learn. How do you get somebody to want to learn something if they’re not naturally curious or don’t naturally like your subject matter?

The answer to that question comes from understanding how motivation works and the different aspects that drive it. There are two types of motivation: intrinsic and extrinsic. Extrinsic motivation is motivation to do something that comes from the outside. For example, you’ll want to clean your room because your parents will ground you if you don’t. That has its limits. If someone decides that the consequence isn’t big enough, they’ll stop being motivated.

What’s more powerful than that is to be motivated from within oneself. So the idea here is that you want to learn because you’re curious about the subject, or you go to work because you love your job and you don’t care what you get paid. The problem is that that really powerful motivation is the hardest for teachers to utilize. A lot of the motivation for learning in a typical educational setting is getting a good grade. That’s a very long-term goal. It’s very far from what the child is living in their real life, and it’s extrinsic. Basically, a grade is society saying you’re good. It’s not yourself feeling good about yourself.

How does Classcraft help students become more motivated?

Classcraft on the surface can seem like an external motivation tool, because you’re giving points out and taking away Health Points, or HP. However, it goes beyond that by taking external motivations and internalizing them, which is something that all good games do.

Three components drive internal motivation in education. Classcraft is built around fostering those three factors. They’re the same factors that make video games fun. The first one is the idea that you can make choices, called “autonomy.“ Students have a personal grasp on the problem, and they can identify with it and express their identity through it. This whole component is about creativity. So with Classcraft, the place where you develop autonomy is that you’re free to use your powers whenever you want. You’re managing your own character, you can customize it however you want, you can train your pets and choose the pet you want. You can act in clear ways to gain XP [Experience Points]. You get a lot of choices.

The second one is “competency.” If something is too easy, it’s not motivating. And if something is too hard, you get frustrated and give up. So you have to give things just the right amount of difficulty so that kids are developing without it being too easy or too hard. The aspect around competency in Classcraft is that all of a sudden, coming to class is something you can control. The game can be hard. But at the same time, it’s not too hard because your teammates are helping you out. And there are ways to help yourself also.

The third aspect is making sure that what students do has meaning. A lot of the things that we teach kids are hard to contextualize. If you say, “learn this math formula,“ what’s the point of it? You have to show kids the real, immediate purpose behind what they’re doing so they can identify with it and ultimately use it out in the world. 

In Classcraft, that meaning comes from their digital avatar, the positive interactions that are hard-wired into the game, and the real benefits and consequences that impact students’ real lives. The relationships that they’re developing with each other and with the teacher gives coming to class a purpose other than getting a good grade. They come for the social experience.

How can Classcraft influence motivation in the long-term?

The cooperation aspect of Classcraft settles in for them. Kids like being in groups. They like the security of that and knowing they have friends. Classcraft gives them that possibility of having a group to which they belong. They develop meaningful relationships with students who are helping each other succeed in Classcraft because they’re on the same team, who normally might never have spoken to each other.

They’re also helping each other in classes that don’t have Classcraft because they started working together in the game. It starts with, “I’ll help you with your physics so you can stop penalizing me in Classcraft.” But then finally, “Oh, I can help you with your math, too, if you need help.” It’s driving these relationships into other subjects also.

What students get is the warm, glowy feeling of “I’m getting approval, I’m succeeding, I’m progressing.” So as kids continue to evolve in Classcraft, they get hooked to that glowy feeling instead of being hooked on gaining XP, and then they can pass that on into other classes because what they want is to reproduce that feeling.

How do motivated students create better classroom atmosphere?

It only takes three or four people to completely ruin a classroom atmosphere. That’s truer when class dynamics are more fragile. With Classcraft, the idea is that by having this stronger mesh of positive interactions, group-building, and collaboration, all of a sudden those few who aren’t there to be productive or to learn have a lot less impact on the group. 

The group is sticking together, and the teacher is automatically acting on these people by removing Health Points. The students together are going to enforce good behavior by saying things like, “Be quiet, we’re trying to work here.”

It really goes deeper than this idea that they’ll behave properly because they get XP and Gold Pieces, or GP. It becomes about creating a learning community. Kids need to feel that they’re safe. Asking questions and being wrong puts you in this space where you’re vulnerable. By creating a positive community in the classroom, you get points for trying to answer. You get points for coming to class and being happy about it. You don’t have to be the best student or the smartest student or the coolest student, you just have to evolve well within the game. All of a sudden that creates this space where everyone else is trying to help you also. So you’re in this position where you’re helping others but they’re also making you feel safe about it by helping you.

What do students gain from having greater motivation in school?

So many things. They learn better, so they gain knowledge and skills. That’s the academic side. They do better if they’re motivated. But from a human perspective, they also gain confidence. If you’re motivated about what you’re doing and you get to express yourself while doing, be creative about it, and be part of a cycle of success, you just get a better view on yourself. 

So it’s really good for self-esteem. For kids and especially teenagers, self-esteem is a really hard thing. It continues to be hard. If you don’t figure it out when you’re a teen, then it haunts you in your adult phase. By driving motivation, you can drive positive experiences and, in turn, lasting confidence.

Photo credit: Shutterstock/racorn