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Our district's overall attendance rate is currently at 89.4%, our goal is 91%, and the CA rate is presently 38.9%; we would like to decrease it to 30% by creating welcoming environments that affirm students’ identities, promote joy, and embeds relationship building and self-management modules in all aspects of the school community

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Following our realization that everyone was fatigued, we knew our equity work needed to address implicit bias and deficit thinking around HOW people are showing up.

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Abstract

Taking a Closer Look

A Is for Autonomy

B Is for Belonging

C Is for Competence

M Is for Meaning

A,B,C + M and Differentiated Instruction

Once teachers see engagement as fluid rather than fixed, they can use four tools to consistently help students find their motivation.

Credit: Prateek Katyal on Unsplash

Abstract

Taking a Closer Look

A Is for Autonomy

B Is for Belonging

C Is for Competence

M Is for Meaning

A,B,C + M and Differentiated Instruction

We've all been there: That moment when, after we've offered directions with great enthusiasm, only a few students begin the task. We wonder, "Why are our students not motivated?"

We teamed up to answer this question while preparing new teachers at Fordham University in New York City. Rhonda, as an experienced P-12 special and general educator, taught courses in differentiated instruction, and Akane, a Fordham professor, taught educational psychology. In our courses, teachers expressed concerns and questions about student motivation. Common misconceptions that motivation is a personality trait and unchangeable made it difficult for teachers to see how all students could be inspired with simple adjustments to tasks and the learning environment. Too often, research and theories on motivation lives in books instead of being operationalized in classrooms. We aimed to take the mystery out of student motivation by helping teachers see how daily teaching practices could be the solution.

We turned to the concrete levers described in Turner's (2014) motivation framework: autonomy, belonging, competence, and meaning (ABC + M). When students seemed unmotivated, teachers could use the ABC+M framework as a tool to identify the specific feelings students needed to feel more motivated. The teachers also found that thinking about ways to prompt greater student feelings of ABC+M supported their efforts to differentiate instruction. For example, teachers assigned students different types of resources matched to their needs to prompt greater student autonomy when tackling a common grade-level task.

Taking a Closer Look

Let's try out the ABC+M framework by harnessing our own motivation. To begin, make a list of activities that generally motivate you--for example, playing games, reading, going to the gym, or lesson planning. Start a second list with times when motivation is a struggle, such as doing laundry, exercising at home, studying for a test, or grading. Look over the lists for similarities and differences. Ask yourself, "What do I notice about the activities and environments when I feel motivated versus unmotivated?" You may feel motivated to exercise in a class or with a team but exercising alone was on your unmotivated list. This difference in motivation for the same activity could occur because you feel greater belonging and meaning when you exercise with others.

The ABC+M framework can explain why you feel motivated for some activities (and not others) and how you can change the task or environment to find motivation for any task-which in turn can reveal a lot about how to adjust teaching to support student motivation. If doing laundry or dishes is on your unmotivated list, can you think of ways to increase the meaning by playing music you enjoy or calling a friend while you do this task? Changing the task or the environment to increase feelings of autonomy, belonging, competence, and meaning is the secret to motivation. Let's take a closer look at each lever.

A Is for Autonomy

As students transition from P-12 settings to college or work, they often feel an incredible increase in feelings of autonomy. Suddenly, they can decide how to fill their daily schedules or choose how and when to complete tasks.

We feel autonomy when we perceive that we can regulate our own goals and actions. Ryan & Deci (2017) have shown that autonomy is an important determinant of intrinsic motivation; students are more likely to be intrinsically motivated when they feel empowered to make decisions in the pursuit of their goals and interests.

Teaching Tip #1: Offer Structured Choice

Teachers promote autonomy by providing students with meaningful choices in pursuit of their learning. In one extreme, teachers assign all aspects of a task, allowing for no flexibility or choice (e.g. complete problems 1-10). On the other extreme, teachers allow total student choice (e.g. choose any book or pick any topic to research). These approaches may lead students to one of two unproductive feelings: having no autonomy or being overwhelmed with options.

A more moderate approach is to offer a selection of curated choices (what we like to call teacher-structured student choice) so that there are no unproductive options. For example, teachers may select three or four books at a specific independent reading level that share a common topic or context and place the books in topic/level baskets. Then, teachers can assign students to choose a book from their level's basket. Daily assignments should always include structured student choices (e.g., complete numbers 1-5 and choose either 6 or 7) that measure the same skills but provide different perspectives to meet various student interests. Structured choice enables students to feel they are taking part in directing their learning-and provides information for the teacher about students' interests.

B Is for Belonging

When students feel cared for within the learning community, they are more likely to engage in learning. Belonging is typically defined in terms of fit, specifically students' perception of how they fit in the environment (Walton & Brady, 2017). Research on school belonging suggests that when students feel a sense of membership in a school, it can counteract the negative effects prejudice and discrimination have on motivation and learning outcomes, and improve long-term subjective well-being (Kumar et al., 2018).

Teaching Tip #2: Use Student Responses to Shape Lessons

Belonging increases when teachers promote ideas from all students in every lesson. Rather than calling on raised hands to gather student responses, which can result in only a few voices, teachers should call on representatives to share a response created by a small group at least once during each lesson. To increase student interest in listening to all representatives, after each small-group representative's response, call on hands to add missing ideas to the list, elaborate on responses, or identify things like vocabulary words used in the group representatives' responses. Teachers should explicitly use the gathered responses to shape the next part of the lesson by 1) analyzing responses for patterns or qualities, 2) checking off responses as they are addressed in the lesson, or 3) forming new groups based on the responses.

At the start of a lesson, teachers can prompt feelings of belonging by helping students articulate and share their curiosity about the topic under study. For example, a teacher might prompt students by showing an image, data table, list of vocabulary words, or map. Without an explanation of the prompt, the teacher launches the discussion routine 2x2x2-two people, two minutes, two questions-where students gather with an assigned partner to generate interesting questions related to the prompt.

Teachers can regroup learners into groups of four to six to reduce the number of questions by asking the larger group to synthesize the questions from each pair. Instead of answering the whole set of questions, invite students to circle the one question that is the most challenging, check the question they most want to answer, and place a star by the question that the group can already explain. The teacher can record the responses as reporters from each group share the most interesting question and explanation. This enables the whole class to easily see, hear, and remember the ideas from their peers. And while students are building relationships with each other and the lesson's topic, the teacher gains an effective formative assessment that can help adjust instruction to build on student curiosity.

C Is for Competence

In many ways, competence is the heart of motivation; students are much more likely to engage in a task when they feel like they can do the work (Bandura, 1997). Daily teaching practices can provide students with tools to navigate their learning and more effectively interact with the environment to achieve their goals.

Teaching Tip #3: Identify Quality Criteria and Resources

Teachers can promote students' feelings of competence by asking them to annotate their own work for specific qualities. This helps both students and teachers recognize the work's qualities from the student's perspective. Quality criteria for tasks can be constructed with students or prepared by the teacher and then made visible on a white board. We use the terms Must Haves and Amazings in our classrooms to define the qualities we want students to include and recognize in their work. Must Haves are the required qualities (for example, explain why, highlight vocabulary words, or draw a sketch of the problem). Amazings provide additional challenges, especially for early finishers, to go beyond the requirements.

A reflection prompt may be as simple as "star your most interesting response" or as complex as "change the perspective to create a new problem." All students should annotate their work for at least one Amazing criteria. Including quality criteria for assignments supports students in realizing what they know and need to work on next.

In addition, teachers can support feelings of competence by ensuring that students are aware of available resources and know how to use them. Table 1 shows an example of effective quality criteria and help resources.

Table 1. Design Tips for Quality Criteria and Help Resources

Learners can also use the Must Haves and Amazing Criteria for deeper reflection. Annotating for criteria supports students in making meaning and seeing meaning in their work, such as: a) "draw an arrow where your response connects to a previous unit and write about the connection"; b)"circle three words that have the greatest importance in our daily life outside of school"; or c) "box a response that shows a skill that you already have and expect to still be using in five years." Criteria that invite students to make connections, identify interests, estimate value, and anticipate use all support students in meaningful learning.

M Is for Meaning

Students are more likely to engage in learning when they feel that it is important, interesting, and useful. Teachers support this by deliberately curating classroom activities that are in dialogue with students' past, present, and future experiences and prioritize opportunities for students to form meaningful relationships with their learning and peers.

Teaching Tip #4: Note a Starting Position

Teachers launch meaningful paths when students begin tasks by exploring the experiences, connections, and questions that they bring to the task-in other words, a starting position. Periodically, students return to the starting position to consider where they are now and where they began-a visible trail of learning in their own responses and work. For example, build in a mechanism for students to document their starting position before beginning the task. Students might simply place a check next to three familiar things and circle something interesting. Or, students could answer an essential question in a one-minute quick write or draw.

At the start of a unit, teachers might ask students to rank the learning goals from most to least interesting. Then, they can return to the starting position at the end of a unit to reflect on how their thinking about the topic has stayed the same, changed, or been challenged. Students can look at these rankings and reflections over time to both measure their growth (i.e., recognize competence) and identify how and why learning is meaningful. In addition to meaning, returning to a starting position also promotes autonomy by monitoring progress and setting goals while fostering the habit of looking at evidence in one's work to assess competence.

A,B,C + M and Differentiated Instruction

Our students come to learning with different starting places, progress at different rates, and will apply their learning in different contexts. Fortunately, helping students find their motivation also supports teacher efforts to differentiate instruction (Bondie & Zusho, 2018). For example, Tip #2 ( Record Student Responses) provides teachers with information for purposeful grouping, adjusting the next learning experience, and assigning specific tasks aimed at developing an individual learner. Tip #3 ( Identify Quality Criteria) provides a means for teachers to respond to specific individual needs when assigning one common task.

Finally, teaching the ABC+M model to students equips them to find their own motivation for assigned tasks. Table 2 summarizes our teaching tips to support teachers in responding to the diverse needs of students in supportive ways.

Table 2. ABC + M Teaching Tips with Differentiated Instruction

Next time you find yourself asking how you can motivate your students, use autonomy, belonging, competence, and meaning to adjust the environment or task to be more motivationally supportive. Daily use of these teaching tipsprovides opportunities for students to find their motivation while facilitating teacher efforts to differentiate instruction.

References

Bandura, A., & McClelland, D. C. (1977). Social learning theory (Vol. 1). Prentice Hall: Englewood cliffs.

Bondie, R., & Zusho, A. (2018). Differentiated instruction made practical: Engaging the extremes through classroom routines. Routledge.

Kumar, R., Zusho, A., & Bondie, R. (2018). Weaving cultural relevance and achievement motivation into inclusive classroom cultures. Educational Psychologist, 53(2), 78-96. https://doi.org/10.1080/00461520.2018.1432361

Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2017). Self-determination theory: Basic psychological needs in motivation, development, and wellness. Guilford Press.

Turner, J. C. (2014). Theory-based interventions with middle-school teachers to support student motivation and engagement In S. Karabenick & T. Urdan (Eds.), Advances in motivation and achievement: Motivational interventions (pp. 341-378). Emerald. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0749-742320140000018009

Walton, G. M., & Brady, S. T. (2017). The many questions of belonging. In A. J. Elliot, C. S. Dweck, & D. S. Yeager (Eds.), Handbook of competence and motivation: Theory and application (pp. 272-293). The Guilford Press.

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The Secrets to Motivation: Autonomy, Belonging, Competence, and Meaning - ASCD

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We've all been there: That moment when, after we've offered directions with great enthusiasm, only a few students begin the task. We wonder, "Why are our students not motivated?" We teamed up to answer this question while preparing new teachers at Fordham University in New York City.

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We rooted each conversation in scholarly articles that supported us in understanding engagement further.

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Zaretta Hammond, a former teacher and college writing instructor, is an influential curriculum designer and trainer who works with school districts on issues of equity, literacy, and culturally responsive instruction. She is the author of Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain: Promoting Authentic Engagement and Rigor Among Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students (Corwin, 2014), which positions culturally responsive teaching as a method for honing cognitive capacity in students and supporting independent learning and agency. She is currently working on a book on instructional equity.

Where do you see student engagement fitting into instructional equity?

For me, equity is about making sure every student is a powerful learner-that's the equity goal we should be shooting for. So, I don't see instructional equity merely in terms of system metrics like getting more kids into AP classes or advanced algebra. Because if we get more kids in advanced algebra, but they can't carry the cognitive load required for advanced algebra, that doesn't help anybody. When we think about equity as making sure every student reaches their intellectual capacity so they can carry a heavier cognitive load-so that they can take part in deep learning that is rigorous, for example-then we see how critical it is to create the kind of intellectual curiosity and engagement that allows us to kick-start students' information processing and meaning making. And I mean true intellectual engagement, not just having fun. Too often we reduce engagement to hands-on "activities" or to a lesson that's fun and interactive, but we don't necessarily connect that interactivity to academic rigor or cognitive capacity building. And that's the thing that's so important. For me, the question is: Do we do enough to create classroom environments for students to be intellectually curious? The problem is not typically with the kids, who always come in with intellectual curiosity on some level. It's with the environments we are creating.

What common mistakes do you see schools making in terms of student engagement, particularly with respect to students who may be struggling?

I think one of the biggest mistakes we make, particularly for struggling students, who are disproportionately children of color, is that we employ a pedagogy of compliance. I mean, if you look at what's being put in front of these students sometimes, it's kind of mind-numbing. There's no complexity to the work. It lacks any real-life context to address the typical student question of "What's the use of me learning this?" The learning is too decontextualized and compartmentalized. By contrast, you could use something like place-based learning, where students are trying to solve a local problem-for example, a water issue in the community, or a land-erosion pattern, or even a problem like too much garbage in the cafeteria. Take the example of the organization Agency by Design Oakland, which has a whole curriculum (in collaboration with the Culture of Repair Project and Maker Ed) around the concept of "repair" in the community. The questions they have students asking are real, complex, and interesting. Teachers create a compelling context for having students use the skills and information they are learning to build and preserve things of value.

Falling into a pedagogy of compliance that values orderliness over the messiness of complex work means we miss the opportunity to ignite engagement naturally. What we know from the science of learning is that when human beings try to figure something out, the brain is fired with intellectual curiosity. The brain loves a puzzle-that's the type of complexity that stimulates engagement.

Schools say they are doing different types of inquiry-based or project-based learning, but too often it's just a series of one-off activities for struggling students to do something "fun," but not cognitively interesting. Then, after the activity, we're back to compliance-focused pedagogy-meaning teachers do most of the talking and thinking, while students aren't creating anything or actively processing what they are hearing or reading. We need to be orchestrating curiosity. Why not start class with a provocative question or a puzzle related to the topic to ignite that intellectual curiosity? Instead, we squander the first 5 to 10 minutes of class with learning target review and a tepid "do-now."

Another mistake we make, again especially with struggling students, is over-scaffolding instruction. Remember, the curiosity we're trying to spark comes in the wondering, in the process of trying to figure something out, in the complexity of seeing connections between things that don't seem like they go together. But we edit out opportunities for this productive struggle and in the process make the content bland. We over-scaffold for our lower performers because we don't have enough trust in their ability to struggle productively without stressing out. So we micromanage their experiences. We scaffold out the curiosity and complexity, which is actually what ignites their brain.

Are there specific principles educators can glean from the science of learning-another long-time focus of yours-to set the conditions for greater intellectual curiosity and engagement?

I think number one is that we have to create a community of learners. We have a tendency to focus on relationships and community-building as purely social-you know, the culture of the classroom, kids getting along, that sort of thing. But what we don't do is create a set of studio habits for learning in community. Think about what artists do when they come together in a studio. They create a community of practice. They learn skills to develop their craft. They learn to critique and analyze each other's work. They extend and stretch themselves cognitively to get better through feedback provided by peers as critical friends. But in classrooms-again, especially in those with students who are low performers-we are afraid of critique or feedback that asks them to level up their skills or stretch themselves. Everything is very nicey-nice. We are afraid of damaging kids' self-esteem. But the reality is that students already know they are struggling, and that's what's damaging their self-esteem.

We have to instill community habits for growth in learning. Competence precedes confidence. When I'm a competent learner, I have the confidence to engage in intellectual endeavors that might stretch me, might confuse me, or might lead to productive struggle. That's precisely what the science of learning tells us makes the brain grow and allows us to carry a greater cognitive load. But if I'm just coasting and everybody's afraid of challenging me, I'm not getting anywhere cognitively, and I disengage. So now you have a pedagogy of compliance mixed with a culture of niceness. Sometimes they mask one another. Neither allows students to grow as learners.

You've talked of trying to marry the science of learning with culturally responsive teaching. Where do you see the need for convergence?

Actually, it's not a matter of convergence. They are just two sides of the same coin-that's what I want educators to see. We need to understand that the responsive part in culturally responsive teaching is the schema part of the zone of proximal development: It's this area of prior knowledge we can build on. I think educators get caught up in the culture part of culturally responsive teaching, and they mistake the whole thing for antiracist education or multiculturalism. That's not what culturally responsive teaching is. Culturally responsive teaching is about tapping the schema, or the funds of knowledge, that the student brings in; it's not just about trying to build self-esteem because his racial or linguistic identity is superficially represented in a text. As a teacher, I need to recognize, honor, and actually use students' funds of knowledge to make learning sticky. The science says learning for understanding happens when we integrate new knowledge with our existing knowledge. So, the more the teacher knows about a student's schema, the more she then can start to engage that student by making "cognitive hooks" between the learner's context, interests, cultural knowledge, and the new content in the curriculum. If the teacher wants to make material sticky, she contextualizes it-she uses metaphor and analogy. But if she doesn't know who those kids are, she won't pick the right metaphors to use. She doesn't know how to connect the new to the known.

From an equity standpoint, how do you think schools can best address the issue of "learning loss" or instructional gaps from the pandemic?

The reality is that students have unfinished learning. When we understand that this is unfinished subject-area learning, we see it's not "learning loss." Brains are learning machines. That is what they do. The reality is that all our students learned something during the pandemic. The problem is that we're not leveraging that. So, answering the question of how do we leverage that home-based or community-based learning becomes the starting point for how we get back to subject-area content. It's kind of an anchor and twist strategy. We anchor in one element-"Oh, I know that"-and then we move to connect to the new thing that we want them to know or learn. This is how all learning happens. So first we have to stop staying that students lost something, then we have to try to figure out what they did learn and use that as part of the schema that allows us to make connections.

How concerned are you that the focus on loss might make schools double down on compliance-driven education?

Very concerned. That's what's happening now-we talk about equity, but we go back to a pedagogy of compliance, especially for BIPOC students who may be behind. We see it in talk about high-dose tutoring and more pull-out programs focused on remediation. Schools say they don't have time for project-based learning, or maker spaces, or any of that because they have so much ground to make up. But we make up ground by actually using intellectual curiosity to turbocharge students' engagement. We need to water up the curriculum and instruction, not water it down.

What's your advice to school leaders to avoid watering down learning?

One recommendation is to bring in the tech tools that some kids were using in remote learning. Lots of classrooms used collaborative programs like Padlet and Jamboard, which were very interactive and gave kids more of a voice than they may have had previously. It gave them opportunities to be in discourse-not just talked at. That can create bridges between academic content and students' interests. It's a small way of not doubling down on what's been lost but instead building on kids' strengths and what's relevant to them. That speaks to this larger idea of building on students' curiosity, bringing in those multi-modal elements to the intellectual life of the classroom, so students start to see learning as not just the purview of school but also of life.

Another piece of this is to help students think about how they learn-again, so instruction is not just being done to them. We need to give them some ownership of their learning and ways of tracking their own progress. As humans, we love to know where we are in relation to a goal or achievement-there's a part of our mental make-up called the progress principle that ignites this kind of motivation. We need to help kids exercise this habit of mind. Let them see where they are and how they are getting better, so we're not just talking about what they lost but how they can grow. As kids start to see they're moving toward competence, they become more confident and engaged. That's the motivation cycle, and it can accelerate learning without an emphasis on "loss."

As an instructional expert, what makes you most hopeful in what you are seeing as schools reopen this year?

I'm hopeful about the discussions I'm seeing around reimagining schools through more engaged teaching and learning. I think educators have recognized that we can trust students to carry more of that cognitive load when we coach them around learning skills. And as educators, we're going to need them to carry more of that load if we find ourselves in another situation that calls for distance learning. When we trust them so that they trust us enough to be in a learning partnership, we help them grow into their potential. When trust is there, students give us permission to push them to higher levels. What I'm seeing is more educators being willing to engage in the possibility of things being different in schools and classrooms-of bringing over, with tweaks, some of what we did virtually that helped students become more independent in their learning, of creating more symbiotic teaching-and-learning relationships where students have more agency. Things are still in flux, and school leaders and teachers have a lot on their plates right now, but I am hopeful that we're starting to see more thinking around what authentic, engaged learning might look like in the near future.

Editors' note: This interview has been edited for space.

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Zaretta Hammond on Equity and Student Engagement

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To help students grow as learners, schools must resist the pedagogy of compliance.

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If we increase overall attendance to 91% or decrease CA to 30% by creating a welcoming and affirming environment that affirms students identities, promotes joy, and embeds relationship building in all aspects of the school then we need to focus on engagement by motivating staff and students appropriately and the best way to do that is by employing the ABC +M for motivation.

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Identify where your school could use the boost based on the CA and Attendance details.

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Creating the Magic was where we thought about the places of magic we could grow to improve attendance and engagement.

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Christopher Emdin: Teach teachers how to create magic | TED Talk

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What do rap shows, barbershop banter and Sunday services have in common? As Christopher Emdin says, they all hold the secret magic to enthrall and teach at the same time — and it’s a skill we often don’t teach to educators. A longtime teacher himself, now a science advocate and cofounder of Science…