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I think that sharing our motivations of pursuing masters or PhD would be interesting. The attached video is a fun video of getting a Phd in humanities.

While I was working at a primary school, one of my students asked me:" Öğretmenim, neden hala okuyorsunuz? Tatile falan gitseniz daha iyi bence:)" I had two day off for graduate courses, that's why he thought I would go on a holiday:) (Or maybe I looked tired:) People who do not know me very well question my motivation for being a Phd student. But, those who know me well think that I should engage in academic studies. Interestingly, whenever I feel demotivated, they try to motivate me:) I love searching, learning new things and sharing them with people around me. Şermin is right: it is the hunger for knowledge and it is the most effective motive for graduate students:)

My motive for doing Master is to feel competent in my expertise field .But the main thing underlying is like everybody else is to learn and look for the best.I have always wondered `What is the best practice in teaching?` `How can I improve my skills both personally and professionally? Quest for the answers are keeping me motivated.

We are always trying to find ways to motivate sts, but don't you think that it is high time for sts to start motivating their teachers?

Şermin, most of the time I need motivation to motivate the students for learning English:) And also, I question why we ask them to learn something they dislike. I agree with Burcu, when students are demotivated, teachers lose their motivation to teach. But, if they are intrinsically motivated, teaching becomes a joy. For example, I loved teaching to 4th graders. They had such a high level of motivation that I experienced the flow while teaching them:)

I also believe that teacher motivation is mutual.The two parties have to affect each other.Unfortunately we as teachers have to be the stimulators in our classes no matter how we feel during the day.One of the solution to keep teachers improve their skills and better their practises can be initiating positive school climate that is keeping teachers morale high by respecting their identity both as a teacher and valuable person in the community. Social parties,cookie-days can be alternative for teachers to have space to socialize, learn from each other and the sense of belongingness would enhance.It worked for some teachers that I worked with earlier.

In the video, learning experiences are claimed to be the similar to roller coaster ride. Learners have control over their own learning process. In the very first place, they begin with participating in the learning experience to reach the ultimate goals. Before accomplishing the ultimate ones, they have short term goals as well. Then, their power to learn is directly related to their own motivation to learn. They need initial motivation to go further. But, how much motivation they need to accomplish reaching the ultimate goals is the question to be asked at this point. While learning process, learners use their motivation and at some point, they lose some of their motivation. So, they need to increase the amount of effort put into their learning. As they put more effort into learning, they are more likely to reach the ultimate goals. As they exert enough effort to reach them, they experience satisfaction and they feel that high achieving something by their own motivation and effort. Then, the results can be satisfactory and increase their motivation to learn again. After they accomplish one of the sub-goals, they can use their experiences and awareness to prepare themselves to reach the next one. For the next one, they need more motivation and effort to learn, and they repeat the learning motivation cycle as described in the video with roller coaster ride.

I loved this video. I remembered my first year of master as I was watching the first loop of roller coaster. I felt that last semester was the most challenging period of my life. I had too much to do. Even I felt like I would fail sometime, I never gave up and at the end of the semester I was very proud of me. Now I say if I overcame last semester's challenge, I can overcome everything. That first loop is really important to carry you to the future goals. Thanks a lot for sharing the video :))

This video is a good example of the importance of having learning goals to be motivated as you also emphasized in the forum. I also liked the phrase "Your future self depends on your present self"

Mostly probably all of you are familiar with Dyned. It is an interactive software for learning English and it is a quite good innovation in the field of computer assisted language learning. It is tired to be used in the public schools and Turkish Ministry of Education supports this.

So perhaps, "motivation" is an important issue to consider with cognitive tutors. Let's cover some of the motivational aspects of cognitive tutors and intelligent tutoring systems in class.

I think when sts are first introduced with such programs, they display high motivation. They are eager to find the secrets of the program. However, as time passes and as they get used to the style of the program, their motivation decreases since there are no secrets anymore. Therefore, in my opinion, to keep their motivation at its highest level, each module (if it's modular) should introduce new ways of learning.

A webpage explaining a general overview of theories related to learning and motivation. You can scroll down to see the animation explaining the balance between skills and challenges. 

I liked this article because the figüre illustrating Maslow's hierarchy of needs was illustrative. The article differentiates btw mastery and performance goals. It emphasizes self efficacy and Weiner's Attribution theory and finally has a different figure for flow.

Based on Evrim Hoca's questions, while googling I came across this. While considering the motivation we disregard one important point I guess. What about the social and economic status of learners and its influence on motivation? Here the news tell us about the accesibility problem. If some are not able to access can we talk about the motivation?

I am studying on learning environments in socioeconomically disadvantaged schools Yelda, :) May be I can provide some information during the course. Thanks for sharing this :)

Yelda, I have no idea about the target population of MOOCs when they first broke out..But I know they have many pros like no-cost for students (mostly), quality (some Ivy League universities are leading), opportunity for who has no chance to enroll a famous university, no presequities like diplom and chance of discussing things through an online platform (diversity)..So motivation is not one of the pros but cons. Because those MOOC institutions does not offer any college credit but a certificate which does not help you for employment and they are free, nothing forces you to complete..Anyway I have already enrolled a 6 weeks Cryptography Course (I am a Courseran now) offered by a Stanford Professor.

I really like the pages on education.com. As this week's topic, I have checked this page about the effects of motivation on learning with examples. You can also check for more examples.

The article demonstrates that a moderate level of extrinsic motivation is better than a high or low level, while the intrinsic motivation should be as high as possible in order to learn better.

-Why are you doing this? -I just felt like running!

Kiewslovski movie! I especially like the scene when father and son calculate whether the son could skate safely or not. He has a great deal of curiosity and father leads his motivation via scientific methods;)

definitely Sinem :)) you summarized the kid's motivation and situation very well :))

Relevance? Could it be a factor for motivation?

The video is very funny and it shows the importance of interest, motivation, self-esteem as well as prior knowledge in learning to me, what do you think?

Thank you for sharing this. Sheldon typically may have aimed to transfer what is written in the books or most probably imitated his teachers as this was the way he was instructed. I say so as the physics teacher at the high school I studied was instructing in the same way and this is why I could not learn physics and developed a kind of prejudice towards that subject matter. As I could not comprehend the abstract terms he was talking about I quitted:(

I think we usually experience such a thing. Teachers want to teach whatever they want without stopping, but they sometimes forget that not every students is very interested in the stuff :( an important thing to keep in mind.

For our motivation discussion next week. 

Hi Evrim Hocam; Thanks for sharing this video. I lwatched and istened to it with great curiosity :) Hi Selçuk; I agree with you to some extent. If the point is having students memorize something, it is useful. Yet, if the point is related to deep understanding, it is not very beneficial.

Yes, I agree repetition and passive demonstration may not have as much impact as active exploration. I recommend using these approaches for factual learning or things that require recall. But, for deep learning, other approaches such as problem based learning offer much better results.

This theory is more about our future-oriented self. Based on our present conditions we form our future selves which could be both ideal or feared and then try to reduce the gaps in order to realize our ideal self. The theory tries to explain highly dynamic processes of goal formation and imagining ourselves in the future. These dynamics among future, present and self have contributed to motivation literature as well and I value its implications for motivational processes. In this video the theory is explained in a very simple terms by an undergraduate Social Psychology student.