Giving motivation to create quality work can be a challenge in the classroom. Kristin Harrington talks a bit about this in her book, Adventures in Authentic Learning, that provides ways to create quality work from your students. Many students instead of creating quality will do the minimum amount required, by simply following the rubric. This book shows some ways to help encourage your students to create quality.
The first way suggested is to allow something called student choice. This book describes this on page 37, as “providing opportunities for your students to choose what they learn, how they learn, and how they demonstrate their learning.” (Harrington, 2020) This creates a way for your students to feel like they are in control and making their own decisions. Another way the book uses is by creating models. The book suggests that it could be helpful to create a model that isn’t the best and provide a time for the students to suggest how to improve it. This way the students are thinking about how to create quality and understand what is expected all at the same time. Providing clear expectations is key to letting them produce quality work, by creating something “challenging but achievable.” (Harrington, 2020)
The book gave a few more examples, and one of them was providing the students with an authentic audience. Students need to know that what they are doing isn’t just busy work, but that they will use this later in life, and can make an impact on society. The author provides a great example of this by using a beekeeper as an authentic audience. The book says on page 39, “When implementing a project to help protect bees, students can interview a local beekeeper to gather information.” (Harrington, 2020) The last item on this list of examples was revision. Revision is essential in any subject because it allows the student to go back and figure out what they did and how to fix it. In doing this it can also create a higher quality of their work.
For more information this website on 20 Strategies To Get The Best Work From Your Students, can help provide extra ways to keep your students motivated in learning.
Harrington, K. (2020). Motivate Students to Create Quality Work. In Adventures In Authentic Learning. essay, International Society for Technology in Education.
Heick, T., & Heick, T. (2022, January 22). 20 strategies to get the best work from your students. TeachThought. https://www.teachthought.com/pedagogy/getting-the-best-work/
How to Teach Kids About Bees. (2020). Beekeeping Like a Girl. https://beekeepinglikeagirl.com/how-to-teach-kids-about-bees/