Chapter 11 Questions to consider.
How might you enhance motivation and affect in your students using the theories of motivation?
Which theories of motivation are most helpful and instructive for you?
Motivation is an extremely important part of being a band director. In order for students to improve on their instruments, they need to practice. No student will practice if he or she is not motivated to get better. I find that with my students, intrinsic motivation is the key. The trick is getting the students to become self-motivated. I have found that playing recordings of professional players and ensembles, makes the player realize how good someone can be on their instrument, while giving them a goal to reach for. With music, players usually want to be as good as possible, but many don't know what "good" actually sounds like. If the best player a student has ever heard is the student they sit next to in rehearsal, they have nothing to reach for, but if the student regularly listens to a professional, then they realize how much work it requires to reach that level.
Extrinsic motivation can also be used, but is only successful if the student already has the intrinsic motivation to receive the extrinsic motivation. This may sound confusing at first read, but with explanation it makes perfect sense. An example of extrinsic motivation in the band world could be making the All State tryouts, or making first chair of their section and getting to play solos. The reason this only works if the student already has the intrinsic motivation is because a student who is not self-motivated to get better, will not appreciate or feel rewarded for making an All-State group or sitting first chair in their section. A student who is not self-motivated will most likely not even audition for All-State, nor care that such a thing even exists. As far as being the first chair player in their section, meaning the top player in their band on their instrument for those reading who were never in band or orchestra, a student who is not already intrinsically motivated may view this role as a burden instead of a reward. A player desiring to be excellent well feel rewarded when asked to play a solo, whereas an unmotivated player will intimidated. In this sense, something that is extrinsic motivation, is only so to those who are intrinsically motivated. I feel that giving the students a specific goal or standard, such as playing recordings of great players, is the best way to get the intrinsic motivation going.
With regards to theories from the chapter, the Sociocultural theories seem to be most in common with my viewpoint here. The book states that "many aspects of motivation are the result of social and cultural factors, such as the norms for behavior..." and to me, this relates to the fact that many musicians, once they hear an excellent player, have an idea and goal as to how they should sound when playing. For example, a trumpet player who listens to recordings of the New York Philharmonic, will hear Phil Smith, the principle trumpet, and think "That is what a trumpet should sound like, so I should try my best to sound like that." In other cultures, many instruments are played differently, and so the way a student should play is very influenced by where they live and who they listen to.
Hunter,
ReplyDeleteI agree with some of your comments on motivation, but what about those students who feel intimidated when they hear a great player? I think as music teachers we can help build a connection between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. I feel like it's part of our responsibility to encourage practice through external motivators first (we can even enlist parents who care to help) so that the student can achieve that first step. When we reward practice early on, and even periodically when we notice a drop in performance, it stimulates more practice which leads to better performance, which ultimately becomes the student's own best reward. Without any incentive initially to practice, students will follow the path of least resistance, which is not to practice. Even a one week challenge to practice every day will produce tangible results that will encourage the student to practice more the next week to reproduce those results. Sometimes we have to tie the practice record in to grades for rewards/consequences to help motivate some of our students. Ideally, we all want to hae our students come with intrinsic motivation to progress and be better, but I have found that rarely happens and we must help them along the path with any method that works at the time.