Motivational Factors

      I must first say, that I am slightly confused on how we started with the seven barriers one day and then the next class period went to this long list of other factors. However, I am going to try my best to put that aside and discuss how I see these other factors used in the classroom. When I think of the  internal motivational factors, I think solely of myself because for the most part all of these depend on me. I came into this class with previous beliefs, a certain level of self-efficacy, personal interests, a preconceived importance of school, and goals, just to name a few of them. Therefore, as an individual, these internal motivational factors that I bring to the classroom differ in some ways to my classmates. So, as a teacher, it is Professor Kruse's job to assess these issues in order to better understand where each of his student stands mostly because these internal motivational factors highly affect the environment and cognitive factors and likewise. By getting to know us in the first few days of class, Professor Kruse was able to do this by assessing where we stand using questions.
      In my opinion, much of the external environmental factors lie in the teachers hands. On the first day, Professor Kruse addressed many of these issues: establishing respect for himself by the way he approached the class, making himself a role model for good teaching, and building relationships. Along the way he has also shown support by always answering questions, being available for help, giving us advice, etc. As a teacher it is up to him to meet the level of teacher expectancy and one way you could say he is doing that is by our grades. Not doing it the easy way and deciding our grades for us, but providing us with feedback in order to give us the opportunity to truly learn how to assess starting with ourselves. Another thing that is obvious to me is that the kinds of activities that are used by Professor Kruse make his teaching unique. Not all my classes focus so much on discussion, asking questions, blogging, etc. However, Professor Kruse uses these methods in order to provide the best opportunity for success in his class and these kinds of activities are confirmed beneficial by the learning theories.
      Another part of the internal factors relies completely on the learing theories: cognitive. Yes, it is Professor Kruse's job to help us learn these theories, but it is our job to cognitively make use of them. However, as I stated above all of what we learn in this class is taught by using the learning theories. So, whether or not we may be aware that we used a learning theory to do something, does not mean that we didn't. Professor Kruse put the learning theories to use on the first day with learning names, took it further with the moon phases, and continues it daily with group discussions, concept maps, etc.