Motivation to Learn

1. Vsauce

1.1. Michael Stevens

1.2. We are curious people and sparking curiosity is great bait. You can "accidentally teach a lot of things to people".

1.3. Examples

1.3.1. How much a video weighs

1.3.2. What color is a mirror? Teaches optics

1.3.3. Why is your bottom in the middle?

1.3.4. What if everyone jumped at once?

1.3.4.1. earth rotation

2. Wonder, Prediction and Student Engagement

2.1. A sense of wonder and the need to predict -- these are two of the qualities that enrich all of us.

2.2. These two qualities, wonder and prediction, can form the basis of making lessons motivating and full of learning.

2.3. The best lessons I have ever seen begin with arousing students' sense of wonder by asking questions that can't help but make them wonder.

2.4. Not only do people love to predict, but prediction is a major part of most disciplines, and they even have their own words to describe it. Math has estimating. Science has hypothesizing.

2.5. begin by juxtaposing things that typically don't go together and build a connection. For example: Why don't "choose" and "goose" rhyme? What does Martin Luther King have in common with algebra?

2.6. Obviously, great "wonder questions" have to connect to the upcoming lesson. They work like introductions to news stories. The newscaster always says something like, "Vice President Dick Cheney shot someone -- coming up right after this." Lead-ins like that make it extremely difficult to ignore the following story. But if the story that follows has nothing to do with the lead-in description, we are turned off.

2.7. once we make a guess, we can't help but to want to know if we were right or how close we were.

2.8. Examples:

2.8.1. If you ask a student a question, and the student says, "I don't know," try to elicit a guess

2.8.2. Here is an example that seems to work a vast majority of the time, even though it sounds goofy. I recommend trying it before judging it. You might be surprised.

2.8.2.1. Student: I don’t know. Teacher: If you did know, what would you say?

3. A review of ESTAT

4. Upworthy Generator

4.1. What Happens When One Fearless NBA Coach Says What None Of Us Will.

4.2. If You Can Watch This And Not Feel Disgusted, Then You Have No Emotions.

4.3. I'll Never Look At This Oscar Winner The Same Way Again.

4.4. If You Can Watch This And Not Feel Disgusted, Then You're Made Of Stone.

4.5. I'll Never Look At This Disgraced Music Teacher The Same Way Again.

4.6. Upworthy is... ...social media with a mission: to make important stuff as viral as a video of some idiot surfing off his roof. Here's a piece by The New York Times' David Carr about our first 100 days. At best, things online are usually either awesome or meaningful, but everything on Upworthy.com has a little of both. Sensational and substantial. Entertaining and enlightening. Shocking and significant.

5. Enduring question in education: "How do we motivate students?"

5.1. External Incentives: (extrinsic motivation)

5.2. Interesting Topics (intrinsic motivation)