Motivation and Self-Regulation
How do you create a motivated and self-regulating workforce?
Purpose
This newsletter is a summary of the research and learnings from a group of State School Principals from Central Queensland who formed a Community of Practice to address the issue - How to lead an improvement culture of self-regulating teaching teams to ensure every student is succeeding.
Click here to view further information about the journey of this Community of Practice.
Are you leading a team of self-regulating teachers?
Self-regulating teachers are imperative to school improvement. By fostering a culture of self-regulating teachers in your school, you can make a significant impact on the learning outcomes of your students.
What do self-regulating teachers look like?
What research and resources are available to help you better understand motivation?
The resources below are designed to provide varying information for schools to support teachers to develop their capacity. It is able to be used as needed by schools. It provides information, practical elements as well as professional and external links and resources to help schools get a handle on what is out there and widely available (that we sometimes don’t get time to explore fully). It is by no means exhaustive, rather it is designed to allow leadership teams to explore relevant resources to frame school based approaches to developing staff motivation and self-regulation.
Understanding Motivation
Motivation is strongly linked to the alignment of values and culture of an organisation, and the values of individual employees.
Values are deeply held beliefs and principles that impact the way people live their lives and make their decisions. Individuals express their values through their lived out behaviours while organisations express their values through their culture as represented by structure, systems, processes, ways of doing and leadership.
Alignment between employees' personal values and organisational values leaves individuals with a sense of congruency, which has a huge impact on employee engagement (productivity and commitment) and thus the bottom line. (Adapted from "Strategic Human Capital Consulting")
CTT_Marketing_Document__2012.pdf
To understand more about the science of motivation, visit the links below.
- Daniel Pink TedTalk - The Puzzle of Motivation
- "The Neuroscience of Motivation" - The following links are from a presentation by Rowena Hardy who is a performance coach, facilitator and practitioner with 30+ years experience in a variety of roles and industries including business development, sales and marketing, customer service.
Self Motivation for Developing Performance Feb 2016 ppt
Self Motivation for Developing Performance Feb 2016 - Handout
- This article by the Harvard Business Review explores the "4 drivers" of motivation for employees in the workplace. Employee Motivation article from Harvard Business Review
Current Resources used in schools
Click here to view a snapshot of examples of current practices and current tools used in schools. These are ideas only, and are shared with permission of the schools from which they were created. Principals should consider the use of agreed protocols when adopting these.
Research and source information
What information is out there on effective tools? What is the research telling us? What information and considerations need to be taken into account by schools when implementing any agreed structure?
- Early Years Curriculum Materials
- The Politics of Collaborative Expertise - John Hattie
- Writing a teaching diary - BCC British Council Think
Professional Learning and Development Resources
The following are resources to support implementation in schools. They include information regarding capacity building of teachers to improve outcomes for students.
How do you improve your school culture?
There are three areas for focus in improving school culture. These are:
Process of consultation.
Forming and maintaining positive professional relationships.
Autonomy – Competence - Relatedness
How do you create a school culture that fosters self-regulation and motivation?
How motivated are you and your staff?
Begin by surveying your staff about their motivation and key drivers for improvement.
This survey was created by our Community of Practice. The link takes you directly to a survey monkey operated through the CQ Region Survey Monkey site. Motivation - What does it look like to you?
The following surveys may also be useful:
- Penn University Survey is useful for measuring the 24 Character Strengths, to guide self-improvement on your character strengths and how to improve on your lessor strengths. Measures 24 Character Strengths.
- School Leaders Culture Survey - a useful survey for examining school culture framed around self-determination theory (see above)
employee_motivation_assesment.pdf This quick survey is very useful for leaders to get a sense of how their actions are impacting on staff motivation.
Useful Readings
- Teachers Professional Lives (1996) edited by Ivor F.Goodson & Andy Hargreaves
- Self-Regulated Learning - from teaching to self reflective practice (1998) edited by Dale H Schunk & Barry J Zimmerman
- Teaching Teachers about Emotion Regulation in the Classroom (2011) Judith Fried
- Self-regulated learning fact sheet
- Self-Regulation and Collaborative Learning in Teachers Professional Development (2003) Deborah L Butler
- An investigation into the relationship between self regulation and critical thinking among Iranian EFL teachers (2011) Afsanch Ghanizadeh
What information is out there on effective tools and what is this research telling us about motivation?
Summary of our research...
Research clearly states that having teachers who reflect on their own practise and adjust accordingly is a key driver for school improvement. Reflection can be either intuitive, or systematic and organised. It enables teachers to become aware of their weak and strong points. Absence of such awareness would make further teacher growth impossible. However, to reflect does not mean just to realise what the strengths and weaknesses are, It should involve analysis of a searched area and a plan of subsequent actions to make it meaningful and effective.
Teachers should be made aware that it is part of their job to be reflective. Vonk, Giesbers, Peeters, Wubbels refer to “six basic areas of responsibility” of a teacher:
knowledge and understanding (of subject, curriculum, educational system knowledge etc.)
planning and designing of the whole and partial activities
teaching strategies and methods providing meaningful learning
classroom management
evaluation of pupils' learning, results and also personality development
further teacher professional development, reflection of his/her own work
Reflection needs to be done in a supportive manner to avoid teachers feeling overwhelmed. Some may need to see the clear benefits (i.e. how it improves practice and outcomes) before they are willing to have a go.
Some authors even hold the view that instead of making lists of what a teacher should be like, it is more important to “ show dilemmas, conflicts and uncertainties the future teacher will tackle…. to teach him/her to reflect and ask questions on his /her own doing.” Stech (1994)
Why is reflection an important part of self-regulation and motivation?
Learning from direct experience can be more effective if coupled with reflection—that is, the intentional attempt to synthesize, abstract, and articulate the key lessons taught by experience
- Reflecting on what has been learned makes experience more productive.
- Reflection builds one's confidence in the ability to achieve a goal (i.e., self-efficacy), which in turn translates into higher rates of learning.
Reflection is the powerful mechanism behind learning,: "We do not learn from experience ... we learn from reflecting on experience."
How does reflection improve performance?
Learning from direct experience can be more effective if coupled with reflection—that is, the intentional attempt to synthesize, abstract, and articulate the key lessons taught by experience
- Reflecting on what has been learned makes experience more productive.
- Reflection builds one's confidence in the ability to achieve a goal (i.e., self-efficacy), which in turn translates into higher rates of learning.
Reflection is the powerful mechanism behind learning,: "We do not learn from experience ... we learn from reflecting on experience."
What did confucius say?
Why reflect on you practice?
How do effective teachers reflect?
Create a teacher diary
How do you record lessons?
The power of peer observation
Who are the members of this Community of Practice who contributed to this Newsletter?
Trudy Graham - Assistant Regional Director
Cath Lalor - Assistant Regional Director
Fiona Connor - Capability Coordinator
Marie Robertson - Bauhinia State School
Damien Hoare - Blackwater North State School
Susan Cannon - Bororen State School
Troy Sanson - Denison State School
Jorgen Neilson - Kin Kora State School
Amanda Mobbs - Denison State School
Mike Anderson - Fitzgerald State School
Fiona Tass - Gargett State School
Heather Wynne-Jones - Gogango State School
Bea Holmes - Jericho State School
Len Fehlhaber - Mackay Central State School
Courtney McVean - Mackay North State School
Lisa Roach - Monto State School
Paul Manttan - Northview State School