Intrinsic Motivation in the Classroom (Douglas Brown)

In this class, we discussed about motivation in the classroom.

Motivation is the activation of goal-oriented behavior. It is the characteristic that is required in order to achieve anything in life. We can say that it is one of the elements that make up the intelligence (it’s difficult to have motivation and it’s difficult to learn without motivation).

We can divide the theories of motivation in two camps:

• Behavioristic paradigm – rewards and reinforcement, this motivation comes from outside of the performer (extrinsic motivation);
  
• Cognitive psychological viewpoints – explain motivation through deeper more unobservable phenomena , it comes from inside an individual rather than from any external or outside rewards (Intrinsic motivation);
  

Behavioristic Definitions

Stress the role of rewards (and punishments) in motivating behavior. In this camp, learners pursue goals in order to receive externally administered rewards.
As teacher we can’t always use the behavioristic definition with our students. Indeed this type of motivation won’t be effective all the time. We could not maintain this situation in which students just “learn” with a reward (and more motivation means bigger rewards - it’s impossible).

Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?What-Is-Motivation&id=945902