3 posts tagged “motivation”
“If people knew how hard I had to work to gain my mastery, it would not seem so wonderful at all” Michelangelo
This post describes a session given by Colin Cox at the eFest meets Teaching and Learning 2009 on October 1st 2009. It focussed on talent, motivation and myelin! It posed the questions: do you do what you do because you have natural talent? Mystery about how to people have talent, what is it, and where does it come from?
A session that explored what the components that make talent and how you ‘grow’ talent. It was a quite interactive session, which involved for example speaking to the person sitting next to you and asking what they felt talent is, and then collecting some of the responses from the audience verbally. Only about 30 seconds per question was given, but the replies indicated that it was just long enough for people to formulate ideas and replies. The answers indicated quite a cross-section of opinions around the subject of talent, its source, and how/if it can be enhanced. Some key ways that were seen as effective ways of enhancing the potential of learners in education, including coaching, self-belief, practice, mentoring, commitment, opportunity.
Some examples of people with talent were Lance Armstrong, Tiger Woods, Jerry Rice, Shane Cameron, and this then moved to a discussion of ‘nature or nurture’. If it isn’t nature then the conclusion was that it would exclude a lot of people. The question was also raised about excellence or mastery in any endeavour and if it was about innate talent, IQ, memory, physical prowess, motivation, practice or a combination.
The example of Tiger Woods was unpicked, and the notion of the fact it was hard work and role models that made the difference as opposed to genetics (although genetic potential does determine height, weight, and muscle mass). By his first major competition at the age of 17 he had already been practising golf since he was 1 ½ years of age.
The next area that was explored was short-term memory (cited the 1978 Carnegie Mellon University study). Cox role=played the part of SF who was able to remember 22 digits after hearing them only seconds before – 1 per second. The amount of effort was physical and emotional. With 250 hours of practice SF was able to recite back 88 digits having only heard them once – 1 per second. The short-term memory is something that can be expanded and extended with practice. The records are now being broken regularly, from 102, to 3 card decks (52 cards in a deck). It was emphasised that SF had average ability.
IQ was the next subject to be put under the spotlight. A study around sales people and horse racing was cited, and looked at who was the most successful, given the information that they have, at predicting results. IQ was not a predictor of success – the lawyer (IQ 118) was not as successful as a construction worker (IQ 85), with the construction worker using more complex formulae, and a success rate double that of the lawyer.
Cox gave an overview of the ‘Myelin secret’ – it’s not about neurons and synapses it’s about Myelin, the neuron insulator. The more you do an activity, the more it insulates the neuron, which takes a neuron from basic functionality to ‘super’ functionality that enables quick responses, thinking and interconnections. Neurons are stimulated by outside actions and influences; the first time you do something neurons fire slowly and are relatively ‘uncoordinated’ – the more something is done, the more the myelin insulates the neurons, and the better the performance of the neuron. Einstein’s brain was the same size as the average person but it had a lot more white matter – myelin.
As an overview, Cox concluded with a discussion of:
1) passion; passion maximises talent because talent requires effort and
time, and is not always fun; Where talent meets talent, the person
becomes unstoppable. Initially, the passion is not there; there is the
requirement for a role model who encourages people to try something.
Once a person tries something and realises that they are quite good at
something, then this can translate to passion that helps you overcome
difficulties and hardships. It helps when the role model is also
passionate.
2) practice; it is not any old practice that makes the difference, it
is ‘perfect practice’. The elite don’t just practice, they do
deliberate practice that is designed to improve performance, and helps
the individual identify specific elements for improvement. What meaning
has this for students? The comfort zone is not your friend! Life needs
to include challenge, things that push you outside of your comfort zone
– things you do not know how to do. However, the ‘panic zone’ is also a
negative space where a person is pushed too far, which often results in
an individual giving up and/or withdrawing. Each student has a
different range of comfort, learning and panic zones, so learning
experiences need to be tailored to the individual. Practice is the
‘mother’ of skills and includes observation, imitation and repetition.
It includes focussed work that builds myelin. Anders Ericsson says the
10-year (10,000 hours) rule appears to be consistently accurate – i.e.
it takes 10 years to master something, whether it is playing a musical
instrument, playing a sport, excelling in a career.
3) Feedback is vital when you are practising.
A thought-provoking session, with a lot of application for education, and helping learners meet their potential.
Not sure if this is the right forum for this, but thought it was not
only an awesome example of planning an incredible feat, but also
something that highlights what is potentially possible when we are
motivated and engaged.
The introduction to the site explains that "The 7 in 7 is something that has never been attempted before. This will come as no surprise to most people – it is after all a pretty crazy thing to do! But for its creator, and main protagonist, Mal Law it is the opportunity of a lifetime to “make pain my friend”, experience New Zealand wilderness at its best, and most important of all, raise at least $50,000 for a great cause – The Leukaemia & Blood Foundation of NZ. The Challenge is a world-first attempt to RUN New Zealand’s 7 mainland ‘Great Walks’ in just 7 (consecutive) days. Completing it will be the equivalent of running 9 off-road marathons and climbing Mt. Cook twice, all within just 7 days."
I found out about the planned epic when a couple of dear friends, whose
son Matthew was diagnosed with leukaemia in his first few months of
life, mentioned the run. Matthew not only survived after much
treatment, care and love, but is now a strapping 2-year-old. Jeff
Greenwood (Matthew's dad) is joining Mal for the Heaphy and the Kepler;
you may spot him training around Auckland...complete with baby buggy!
:-)
Motivation is a strange thing, comes from many sources, and can help people achieve what appears to be impossible. Long live motivation!!
Just wanted to jot a couple of thoughts down in response
to this podcast "Teaching outside the limits of space and time" which I listened to while running along the waterfront
in Auckland a couple of days ago. The podcast features the EdTech Posse who pretty regularly have entertaining discussions around a whole heap of aspects of ICT enhanced learning and teaching. (They have a laid-back, pretty unstructured approach, sometimes featuring pub-settings, and often with guest appearances by the dogs...you just have to listen :-) )
In this particular podcast a lot of what they were saying hit a
note of accord and I found myself grinning like an idiot (not a good
look at the best of times). Some of the key topics they covered were designing programmes and what (if any) is the optimum duration for a course for effective learning, and aligning assessment (types as well as content with course design) - i.e. if you have a course that encourages open learning, then more traditional forms of assessment are unlikely to measure the effectiveness of the learning that has taken place. They also mulled over the importance of building learning networks, but that these too need time to develop, and that it is hopeless to try to force a community to develop. The final point was about podcasting - taking offline conversations and putting them online...but in a forum where futher discussion from disparate voices from around the globe is encouraged.
I did think there were a couple of points I'd like to add into the mix. For example, when they discussed the optimum length of a course, one aspect that I don't think was mentioned directly was motivation (extrinsic or intrinsic), although there was discussion about how interest in a subject can shape the learning experience (irrespective of duration). Alongside this factor is the notion of whether a learner is 'ready'...if they have developed the necessary cognitive framework that can be built upon with this next set of thinking and/or skills. If the learner is in just the right spot then an hour may be all it takes to turn the tide; something that just falls into place that makes sense of everything else. I think that this may be the case irrespective of whether it's a content based or process based course.
The other thing that really struck my imagination was the embedding of one discipline with in another that really 'smokes the tyres' of the learner. The example was the art class with embedded math. Awesome. We did something similar (but not as sophisticated) at Dubai Men's College where we had a project-based ICT enhanced blended-learning programme over 40 weeks. Math, English, academic literacies, ICT literacies, and Arabic were all integrated into the incremental, experiential learning course. Students would gradually produce one artefact over 10 weeks, building cumulatively another 'bit' each week, and the focus was very much on the process - the learning journey - rather than the end product.
I reckon I've drivelled on for long enough. I'd highly recommend the podcasts as thought-provoking and entertaining.
