Self-Determination Theory Primer and Classroom Practices
Faculty are centrally concerned with motivation — how to move themselves or others to act. People are often moved by external factors such as reward systems, grades, evaluations, or the opinions they fear others might have of them. Yet, just as frequently, people are motivated from within, by interests, curiosity, care or abiding values. These intrinsic motivations are not necessarily externally rewarded or supported, but nonetheless, they can sustain passions, creativity, and sustained efforts. The interplay between the extrinsic forces acting on persons and the intrinsic motives and needs inherent in human nature is the territory of Self-Determination Theory.
Self-Determination Theory (SDT) represents a broad framework for the study of human motivation and personality. SDT articulates a meta-theory for framing motivational studies, and perhaps more importantly, SDT propositions also focus on how social and cultural factors facilitate or undermine people’s sense of volition and initiative, in addition to their well-being and the quality of their performance. Conditions supporting the individual’s experience of autonomy, competence, and relatedness are argued to foster the most volitional and high-quality forms of motivation and engagement for activities, including enhanced performance, persistence, and creativity. In addition, SDT proposes that the degree to which any of these three psychological needs is unsupported or thwarted within a social context will have a robust detrimental impact on wellness in that setting. (http://selfdeterminationtheory.org/theory/)
Dr. Zimmerman’s presentation on “That First Day…” during our September session illustrated the SDT elements of autonomy, competence, and relatedness, argued to foster student engagement for activities. However, we missed the opportunity for you to share practices that you have successfully implemented in your classrooms and we would like to document that.
“If you were putting together a list of 1 to 10 practices to share with colleagues in your field, what would you include?”
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