Motivational Factors Adopted in Schools to Improve Thinking Process

Our world and the world of the future demand that all students are supported to become effective and skillful thinkers. Thinking validates existing knowledge and enables individuals to create new knowledge and to build ideas and make connections between them. It entails reasoning and inquiry together with processing and evaluating information. It enables the exploration of perceptions and possibilities. It also involves the capacity to plan, monitor and evaluate one's own thinking, and refine and transform ideas and beliefs. The Thinking Processes domain encompasses a range of cognitive, affective and metacognitive knowledge, skills and behaviour's which are essential for students to function effectively in society, both within and beyond school. Most attempts to teach thinking are based on some formal analysis of the nature of thinking, but what they are all trying to achieve, irrespective of their precise theoretical foundations, is to develop the person's thinking to a qualitatively higher level. Focusing on thinking skills in the classroom is important because it supports active cognitive processing which makes for better learning. It equips pupils to go beyond the information given, to deal systematically yet flexibly with novel problems and situations, to adopt a critical attitude to information and argument as well as to communicate effectively. School population Number of students per class Number of classrooms available Facilities that could be used during Thinking Skills lessons Possible slots in the time-table to fit Thinking Skills Keen interest by the school to introduce the Thinking Skills Programme Motivation has several shadings, but for this article the categories of extrinsic and intrinsic motivation are sufficient. Extrinsic motivation is the result of conditions outside the person, while intrinsic motivation is an outgrowth of internal needs or desires related to the task itself. Students‟ motivations are influenced by two aspects of the teacher's interaction: 1) the nature of the learning tasks; and 2) the instructional/assessment strategies based on certain inborn traits common to all of us. Learning tasks are a significant source of motivation. While entertaining and enjoyable qualities in tasks are important, tasks that combine these with more substantive qualities will elicit deeper student engagement. Students respond quite differently to tasks that are authentic “real-life” tasks – tasks that adults confront and that have importance beyond the classroom (e.g., creating artworks for a school-wide or public exhibition; critiquing one‟s own musical performance; preparing for a concert) than to tasks without such traits. Further, in a summary of motivational research (Kellaghan, Madaus, and Raczek, 1996) found that students respond positively to tasks that they perceive as challenging but “do able” and that have relevance (value) to them. Also, creative tasks, which provide the student a degree of freedom in their resolution (e.g., creating artworks that use design principles and functions to solve specific visual art problems embodied in the standards; composing a musical composition) can be a source of personal pride and intrinsic motivation. To maximize motivation, then, teachers should develop tasks that are authentic, appropriately challenging, relevant, and creative.