Lessons from a co-design team on supporting student motivation in middle school science classrooms

ABSTRACT

Decades of motivation research have yielded a set of Motivation Design Principles (MDPs) that can be leveraged to support the development of student motivation and engagement in the classroom. This article addresses the translation of these guiding principles to teacher professional learning and subsequently, classroom practice. Drawing from published literature, as well as the experiences of a co-design team of motivation and science education researchers and middle school science teachers, we address the landscape of decision points for designing and implementing professional learning focused on supporting middle school students’ motivation in science. We identify 3 key decision points: (1) the extent to which professional learning should focus on general principles or specific practices; (2) the appropriate level(s) for translation of the MDPs into practice; and (3) the creation of opportunities for teacher reflection and self-assessment of their practice on student motivation and engagement.

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank the participating school districts, co-design teachers, science coordinators, and students for their partnership and insights on this project. The authors gratefully acknowledge Katherine Nilsen and Gary Weiser from WestEd for their contributions to the research and development work. This work would not be possible without the contributions of the undergraduate and graduate student research team members of the M-PLANS project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional Resources

1. Shumow, L. & Schmidt, J.A. (2014). Enhancing adolescents’ motivation for science: Research-based strategies for teaching male and female students. Corwin Press.

This practitioner book details motivational constructs with illustrative vignettes specific to science and offers research-based strategies for supporting students’ motivation in secondary science classrooms. A companion website provides tools for practitioner reflection, illustrative video clips, and additional resources.

• (2) Windschitl, M., Thompson, J., & Braaten, M. (2018). Ambitious science teaching. Harvard Education Press.

This practitioner book describes multiple strategies and tools for teachers to plan for students’ meaningful engagement with science. While not framed specifically in terms of motivation theory, the book outlines multiple motivationally-supportive strategies that are deeply rooted in science learning, particularly around facilitating discourse about science concepts.

• (3) Guskey, T.R. (2002). Professional development and teacher change. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 8, 381-391.

This article synthesizes research on how teacher professional development translates into changes in teachers’ practice and attitudes, as well as gains in student learning outcomes, identifying several challenges to designing professional development and highlighting characteristics of effective professional development.

Notes

1. When referencing the design principles by their shorthand names throughout the paper, we present them as capitalized and in italics to distinguish them from the motivational constructs with similar names.

Additional information

Funding

This material is based upon work funded by the National Science Foundation under grant numbers 1813047, 1812976, 1907480. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.