MOTIVATING YOURSELF TO LEARN

CHAPTER - 2
 CHAPTER WILL INCLUDE....
• Describe yourself as a learner: what you
already do well and what skills you would like to
develop
• Identify your learning style and your source of
motivation
• Be able to adapt to learning styles and
motivating factors that differ from your own
• Use critical thinking and learning strategies that
make studying more efficient and productive
 MOTIVATION....
• Motivation is the incentive or desire that prompts
you to act
• For example, a desire for love, companionship, and
a family motivates your search for a life partner
• A desire for a certain level of income motivates
your career choice
• Wanting to help others is the incentive for
volunteering your services
• Why have you come to college? What do you want
most out of life? What kind of work would you like
to do in the future? Answer those questions and
you will find your incentives to study, learn, and
succeed
 MOTIVATION....
• In other words, the motivation to learn lies
within you—it is your responsibility
• First, decide what you want. Then become a
self-starter, one who is not afraid to ask
questions and who takes the initiative to set
goals and put plans into action
• Being a self-motivated student means that you
take personal responsibility for your life and its
outcomes
• You know that with hard work and persistence,
achievement is within your grasp
 ASSESS YOUR STRENGTH & WEAKNESSES
• A realistic assessment of your strengths and
weaknesses in the basic skills of reading, writing, and
math is must. Today, computer skills are also essential
• If you do not know what your strengths and
weaknesses are in those areas, you may overestimate
your skills and take courses for which you are
unprepared
• Or you may underestimate the value of your
experiences outside of college, which can make up for
some skill deficiencies
• For example, you may have gained knowledge and
abilities from reading, working, traveling, or serving in
the military that you can apply to your college courses
• Knowing what you can and cannot do, and making
decisions based on that knowledge, will help you make
responsible course
 ASSESS YOUR STRENGTH & WEAKNESSES
• Your self-assessment should take into consideration
the advice you have received from helpful people at
your college
• Your academic advisors and instructors are eager for
you to be successful
• That is why they have invested so much time in
testing you, advising you, and perhaps requiring you
to take a skill-development course in reading,
writing, math, or computer literacy
• They also know that a strong foundation in these
basic skills is a career asset.
 ASSESS YOUR STRENGTH & WEAKNESSES
• Self-assessment is a key to success in the workplace as
well as in college. When confronted with any new
learning situation, ask yourself questions such as “What
do I already know?” “What skills do I have that I can
use?”
• What personal qualities apply?” “What additional
knowledge, skills, or qualities do I need?” Your answers
will provide the self-knowledge you need to make good
choices
 DISCOVER AND USE YOUR LEARNING STYLE
• Learning style is a preferred way of learning, but you
can also adapt your study methods to take
advantage of other learning styles as well
• Visual learners prefer to learn by reading or watching
• Auditory learners like to learn by listening
• Tactile/kinesthetic learners learn best by hands-on or
motor activity
 DISCOVER AND USE YOUR LEARNING STYLE
• Discovering and using your learning style is the
second key to success in college
• Like everything else about you, your learning style is
uniquely your own, different from anyone else’s
• Your learning style is your preferred way of learning
• Another way to look at learning style is to think of it
as the conditions under which you find it easiest and
most pleasant to learn and to work
• For example, suppose you buy a new piece of
software. What would be the easiest, quickest, and
most pleasant way for you to learn how to use it?
Would you read the manual, follow the instructions
in a tutorial program, ask a friend who knows how to
use it, or sign up for a course?
 DISCOVER AND USE YOUR LEARNING STYLE
• None of these ways is the best way to learn how to
use new software, but one of these ways, or a
combination of them, may be the best way for you to
learn
 DISCOVER AND USE YOUR LEARNING STYLE
• Your learning style has many components. We will
discuss four of them:
– Your five senses
– Your body’s reactions
– Your preferred learning environment
– Your level of motivation
 LEVEL OF MOTIVATION
• A motive is a reason, purpose or incentive for
Behaviour
• A motivation is the impulse to act on your incentive
and desires
• Intrinsic Motivation are internal rewards and
incentives, such as desire or need
• Extrinsic Motivation are external rewards and
incentives, such as money or recognition from
others
 LEVEL OF MOTIVATION
• What do you want and how hard are you willing
to work for it? How you answer this question
depends on your motives
• A motive is a reason or purpose for your
behavior
• A motive can be a desire you want to fulfill, a
need that has to be met, a reward you seek, or
some other incentive
• For example, if a student attends class regularly,
always comes prepared, asks questions, takes
notes, and generally is attentive, the motive
behind these actions might be the desire to earn
a good grade
 LEVEL OF MOTIVATION
• If a student shops at discount stores, compares
prices to find the best deal on products and
services, carpools to conserve gasoline, the
motive might be to save money. Motives can be
hard to pinpoint, but we can infer them from
behavior
• Motivation is the impulse to act on your
incentives and desires
• Your level of motivation can vary in intensity and
persistence, depending on how much you want
something and how hard or long you will work to
achieve it
 LEVEL OF MOTIVATION
• Psychologists believe that motives are both
intrinsic (internal) and extrinsic (external)
• Intrinsic motives originate within the self.
Examples are the desire for selffulfillment,
feelings of personal responsibility, and pride in
achievement
• Extrinsic motives are rewards or incentives that
are imposed from outside the self. Some
examples are grades, money, and recognition
from others
• People are influenced by both intrinsic and
extrinsic motives, but what prompts a person to
act in certain ways?
 LEVEL OF MOTIVATION
• Why do some people believe that they can make
things happen while others believe that life just
happens? Motives are only part of the answer
• The real key to understanding motivation is to
recognize how much control you believe that you
have over the events of your life
If you believe that you have the power to shape your life’s
outcomes through your attitudes and behavior, then your
source of motivation is internal: it lies within you.
If you believe that chance or fate rules your life or that
people more powerful than you determine what happens
to you, then your source of motivation is external: it rests
in the hands of others
 HOW TO BECOME SELF MOTIVATED
• Become a positive thinker
• Take responsibility for motivating yourself
• Accept the fact that success results from effort
• Start listening to yourself talk
 ADOPT OTHER LEARNING STYLE
• Everyone has a learning style. In college’s diverse
learning community, it is important to acknowledge
and accept the different ways in which instructors
teach and students learn
• Adapting to others’ styles is the third key to your
success
• When working collaboratively with classmates or
when speaking in front of a class, acknowledge
others’ styles
• For example, a person who prefers to work alone
may have to be encouraged to participate with group
members
• Similarly, if you are planning to give an oral
presentation, supplement it with visual aids to
appeal to the visual learners in class
 ADOPT OTHER LEARNING STYLE
• You probably won’t find it difficult to adapt to your
classmates’ styles. Many of them are your friends,
but you should make an effort to get along with all of
your classmates because you will be working with
them throughout the term
• The greatest challenge lies in adapting to your instructors’
teaching styles. Just as you have a learning style, your
instructors have teaching styles
• An instructor’s teaching style determines, to some extent,
the instructional methods he or she prefers to use
• Although educational researchers define a number of
teaching styles, we will consider only two basic types:
independent and interactive
 ADOPT OTHER LEARNING STYLE
• Each of these styles represents an extreme of behavior.
However, many instructors’ styles fall somewhere between
these extremes
• For example, an instructor may use mixed modes: a
combination of teaching methods such as lecturing,
collaborative activities, and group discussion