Deep Dive Podcasting Books

Cambridge Handbook Of Motivation and Learning


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How do you motivate your children to study in school and university, inter-act with friends, find a nice profession that interests and satisfies them, and stay honest and healthy, all at the same time? There are wide-ranging (and sometimes wild) opinions on this, ranging from generously pampering and bribing them via coaching and tutoring to the carrot-and-stick approach and the somewhat radical tiger moms. We all have our ideas about how to induce motivation for learning, how the two are related, and how to improve each. in addition, there are plenty of cultural prejudices and folk psychology that may have the best of intentions, but ultimately may not go far enough for the demands of modern societies built on evidence rather than irrational beliefs. What is needed is a coherent scientific approach that assures humane, rational, thoughtful, flexible, and open procedures. in these modern times, this approach should involve evidence derived from studying the properties of the underlying hardware, which in these cases is the brain. The current collec-tion of chapters is exactly that. A number of psychologists, educators, and neuroscientists have written about their thoughts and draw on their empirical research to analyze the evidence, make predictions, and give advice.Motivation is a funny thing. if you have too much, you may go around in circles, and if do not have enough, you cannot fulfill your dreams and inten-tions (and those of your parents and friends). You can derive motivation from rewards that you get from having done something well, and you may try again and again to get more of the reward. Reward is a powerful goal of motivated behavior and reinforces it. in particular, surprising rewards will make you go for more; they are often more efficient than rewards that are predicted. goethe once famously said, “nothing is harder than a succession of fair days.” Surprise generates attention and interest; it motivates you to get more of it. Thus, surprising rewards are good motivators. They are also very effective for learning. Once you get a surprising reward, you want more of it, and to do so, you may need to change your behavior, which is exactly what learning is all about.

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Deep Dive Podcasting BooksBy Evelyn Dias Koch