#357 – Improving Student Motivation Through Passion Projects

#357 — Improving Student Motivation Through Passion Projects

AVID Open Access
9 min

Keywords
student motivation, passion projects, competence, control, interest value, relatedness, Genius Hour, 20% projects, maker spaces, enrichment time, sprints, technology integration, creativity, choice, academic achievement

Transcript

Paul Beckermann 0:01
Welcome to Tech Talk for teachers. I’m your host, Paul Beckermann.

Student 0:06
Check it out. Check it out. Check it out. Check it out. What’s in the toolkit? Check it out.

Paul Beckermann 0:16
The topic of today’s episode is improving student motivation through passion projects.

A study from the Center on Education Policy at the George Washington University points out that reform efforts to achieve improved academic achievement often focus on accountability, standards, and tests teacher quality and school management. At the same time, the report acknowledges that motivation is a key factor in student success. They write, “If students aren’t motivated, it’s difficult, if not impossible, to improve their academic achievement no matter how good the teacher curriculum or school is.”

To improve student motivation, we need to first understand what drives students to become motivated in the first place. The Center on Education Policy’s report cites numerous studies to come up with this four part summary. They write that there are four dimensions of motivation that we need to consider.

Number one, competence, the student believes he or she has the ability to complete the task.

Two, control, or autonomy. The student feels in control by seeing a direct link between his or her actions and an outcome, and retains autonomy by having some choice about whether or how to undertake the task.

Number three, interest or value. The student has some interest in the task or sees the value of completing it.

And four relatedness, completing the task brings the student social reward, such as a sense of belonging to a classroom or other desired social group, or approval from a person of social importance to the student.

Well, there are lots of ways to interpret and address these considerations. One approach that can check off all four items on this list of dimensions of motivation is to facilitate student passion projects.

So first off, what is a passion project? In simple terms, a passion project is an assignment where students get to do something that they’re passionate about. They get to choose the focus, decide what they want to learn and create, plan out how they will achieve these goals, and work toward completion of it. Passion projects are sometimes presented as Genius Hour or 20% projects. The 20% idea comes from Google’s practice of allowing employees to work in an area of personal interest and passion one day per week, or 20% of their time. Schools have often packaged us into a period of time called Genius Hour, where students get to spend about an hour per week on a project of their choice. Whatever you call it, or however you package it, passion projects can help to improve student motivation and, in turn, student achievement and performance. Let me address each of the four dimensions of motivation in relationship to passion projects.

So number one was competence. When students get to choose their own projects, to likely choose something that they believe they can actually accomplish, even if they don’t know how to do everything when they start, they’re generally more motivated to learn because they care about the learning. And that can lead to a feeling of self empowerment and eventually competence.

Number two was control and autonomy. The key here is again, that students get to choose their topic, project, and path forward. Control and autonomy are central to passion projects and arguably the biggest reason why they’re motivating for students.

Number three, interest and value. Since students have choice, they pick things that interest them. Because these interests have intrinsic value, they often work extra hard to complete them.

Number four was relatedness. This is also important. Many students are unmotivated by grades or scores on standardized tests. Those measures often feel detached from their passions. Passion projects, on the other hand, return different types of rewards. They bring feelings of pride and self worth, when a student works through a challenge to complete a difficult project. Students are often quick to share their projects and successes with friends and family, because it brings a sense of status to them. They’re often eager to show off their work. Praise from a peer is often valued over grades on a test.

So if passion projects bring all these rewards, how can we integrate it into our school day? There’s no one size fits all answer to this question, but there are approaches that have worked for teachers in schools. Here are a few of those.

Number one, Makerspaces. Library media centers are great spaces to house Makerspaces. Makerspaces are areas that are dedicated to student play, exploration and creation. They are generally stocked with supplies, which can include both digital and offline resources. Students can self select the projects that they work on. This can happen during study hall, before or after school, or when students have finished classwork. It can be a nice reward to be able to go to the MakerSpace.

Number two, 20% projects. If you have some flexibility in your curriculum, you might consider dedicating one day per week to a passion project. When I ran the TV news show in my school, I was able to take this approach. Every Friday was passion project day where students could choose a media rich topic of their choice to work on. I had students writing, recording and producing music albums, creating instructional videos for how to become a better baseball pitcher, developing a complex music video, creating multimedia books, generating digital art, and a lot of other really cool projects.

Number three, enrichment time, perhaps the easiest way to bring passion projects into the classroom is to allow students to work on them when they finish their assigned work early. Not only does this add motivation for finishing their work, but it’s also a great way to use this extra time in a productive manner.

Number four, sprints. I’m borrowing this one from one of our podcast guests, A.J. Juliani, who’s an expert on project-based learning. He talks about sprints, which are mini project based learning activities or passion projects, really. He talks about the value of all students getting this type of experience, rather than only the quick finishers or high achievers getting to pursue their passions. It’s important to allow all students this opportunity. He says, if you can carve out a couple days from your schedule, you can give all students in your classroom a chance to sprint toward the completion of a short passion project the days before a major break or after state testing might be a good time to do this.

And finally, what does all this have to do with tech talk? Can students have passions that do not involve technology? Well, absolutely, passions can be offline, online, or a mixture of both.

Realistically, most student passions involve some degree of technology integration. After all, technology is pervasive in our culture, and almost everything that we touch has some tech connection. In addition, technology tools offer almost unlimited opportunities for creation and imagination by providing a palette of technology tool options, students can choose something that inspires them. For some it might be video production. Others might choose Audio. Still, others might connect with the visual arts, or maybe they’re into computer coding. Give students options, and they will usually find something that inspires them.

And of course, it’s important to always leave the door open for student suggestions and offline work. We can’t be masters of every tech tool or project idea, just as we can’t be experts of every student passion possibility. Let’s empower students to bring in tools and interests from outside of school that they care about. If we can bring their passion into our classroom, it might change student perspectives and feelings about school in general, and increase motivation in the process.

To learn more about today’s topic and explore other free resources, visit avidopenaccess.org. Specifically, I encourage you to check out the collection of articles titled Empower Students Through Creativity and Choice. And of course, be sure to join Rena, Winston, and me every Wednesday for our full length podcast Unpacking Education, where we’re joined by exceptional guests and explore education topics that are important to you. Thanks for listening. Take care and thanks for all you do. You make a difference.