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Young children would rather explore than get rewards

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Re: Young children would rather explore than get rewards

#81

Post by dr_dshiv »

kqr wrote: post #4

For anyone interested in this type of stuff, I can recommend reading Drive . Briefly, human behaviour can be motivated for extrinsic and intrinsic reasons. The rewards in this article are extrinsic motivators. Exploring is rewarding in an intrinsic way; it is a strive towards autonomy, mastery, and purpose. In adults (and in older children) applying extrinsic motivators kills intrinsic motivation. Once the extrinsic…

Try getting children to learn to play guitar or piano or math purely through intrinsic moyovation. They might be into it for a bit, but not enough for regular practice. But, when they have enough skill, they can then develop further intrinsic motivation to really get good.

Everything in moderation.

Re: Young children would rather explore than get rewards

#82

Post by renewiltord »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #2

One thing neither this article nor the linked study measure is if there is a difference in this behavior between boys and girls. I looked through the actual article to see if there was a statement that said if there was a statistical difference between the two or not, but although they do specify the numbers for the genders of the participants in the study, none of the analysis does any comparison between the genders…

They weren't testing that hypothesis, so that's why they didn't do this. If you go back and torture the data like this, you'll get acne from green jellybeans.

Re: Young children would rather explore than get rewards

#83

Post by watwut »

kqr wrote: post #55
euske wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the major obstacle here is the cost. Since intrinsic motivators vary a lot from person to person, the program has to be customized for individual learners. Unless every kid has an individual tutor or something, this isn't feasible. Most education problems are basically a money problem.

Student-to-student tutoring is super effective. Even if most students suck as tutors (which they probably do – tutoring is difficult), the benefits outweigh the problems by a big margin. Most importantly, it allows each student the desired individual focus. But it also improves the tutors' memories of the classes they used to take. I'm baffled it's not more widely employed in lower education. (Higher education seems…

It sucks to be the kid who behaves well is punished by being a tutor for kid with issues the adults have hard time to motivate or deal with.

The tutors is not improving own recall. The tutor is dealing with social problem outside of tutors control or abilities. And no, good student kid wont be able to individualize teaching better then adult teacher. The good student kid will struggle with the whole motivational thing much much more.

Re: Young children would rather explore than get rewards

#84

Post by chrisdirkis »

jariel wrote: post #37
kqr wrote: post #4

For anyone interested in this type of stuff, I can recommend reading Drive . Briefly, human behaviour can be motivated for extrinsic and intrinsic reasons. The rewards in this article are extrinsic motivators. Exploring is rewarding in an intrinsic way; it is a strive towards autonomy, mastery, and purpose. In adults (and in older children) applying extrinsic motivators kills intrinsic motivation. Once the extrinsic…

This is all fine and good but it misses some much more fundamental drivers, not those that are narrowly instinctive. If you want to play the violin beautifully, you have to practice for 10 years, there's no way around it. If you want to do important things, you have to train in all sorts of capacities, and put in a lot of sweat. One of the things that differentiates humans from beasts is that we have at least some se…

> If you want to play the violin beautifully, you have to practice for 10 years, there's no way around it. > > If you want to do important things, you have to train in all sorts of capacities, and put in a lot of sweat.

I don't know the source of this, but I remember reading that most people who become good at things, by practicing for 10 years or whatever, were intrinsically motivated to do so. It's not a process of "want to be good -> force self to practice -> become good", but more of "want to practice -> become good". Can't remember if this was just conjecture, and I'm not a citeable source myself, but it seems like a more likely story. I know I've heard stories of talented people who got where they are because they spent all day noodling on the guitar, or writing programs, but I've heard less stories about people who didn't really enjoy the practice but forced themselves into it via willpower.

Not to say that "just noodling" is all that the person needed, or that no willpower was required, but that the process might be more intrinsic for the people who are actually going to become great anyway.

Re: Young children would rather explore than get rewards

#85

Post by watwut »

rpastuszak wrote: post #68
kqr wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Student-to-student tutoring is super effective. Even if most students suck as tutors (which they probably do – tutoring is difficult), the benefits outweigh the problems by a big margin. Most importantly, it allows each student the desired individual focus. But it also improves the tutors' memories of the classes they used to take. I'm baffled it's not more widely employed in lower education. (Higher education seems…

+100000 > Even if most students suck as tutors [...] Teaching is such a valuable skill in itself! And, it can be improved. I'd argue that you can't say that you understand something unless you can explain it to someone a step away from your current level of depth in the domain. Now, imagine every developer spend 5%, 1% of their (coding) time learning how to teach or communicate ideas in a succinct, empathetic way. We…

> Teaching is such a valuable skill in itself! And, it can be improved.

You dont improve peoples skills in general just by throwing them into water and hoping that swimming happens by itself.

Re: Young children would rather explore than get rewards

#86

Post by simonh »

cycomanic wrote: post #73
kqr wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Student-to-student tutoring is super effective. Even if most students suck as tutors (which they probably do – tutoring is difficult), the benefits outweigh the problems by a big margin. Most importantly, it allows each student the desired individual focus. But it also improves the tutors' memories of the classes they used to take. I'm baffled it's not more widely employed in lower education. (Higher education seems…

The finish system seems to get this mostly right, from what I've read. No clear age based classes, group work across traditional class boundaries, older kids helping the younger ones. They also seem to get excellent results based on the Pisa studies. Mind you, this is from reading about it, I don't have first hand experience how the system works. I can however attest to the effectiveness of tutoring in higher educati…

Come on Finns of HN, we know you're out there. What's your experience of this?

Re: Young children would rather explore than get rewards

#88

Post by agumonkey »

kqr wrote: post #4

For anyone interested in this type of stuff, I can recommend reading Drive . Briefly, human behaviour can be motivated for extrinsic and intrinsic reasons. The rewards in this article are extrinsic motivators. Exploring is rewarding in an intrinsic way; it is a strive towards autonomy, mastery, and purpose. In adults (and in older children) applying extrinsic motivators kills intrinsic motivation. Once the extrinsic…

This is how I survive usually. I turn whatever externally imposed duty is imposed into something that will tickle my inner curiosity / desire.

Extrinsic motivation, IMO, is akin to an exchange or bargain, you have to develop a sense or skill to know how to make them.

ps: more generally I'm very curious about the topic of 'pedagogics' and also the way to create harmonious, high level work environment between people (all motivated by few years of seeing nothing but drag, pain and waste in too many workplaces). If you know board, MLists or else, ping me.

Re: Young children would rather explore than get rewards

#89

Post by messo »

cycomanic wrote: post #77

For people interested in this topic I highly recommend reading about summerhill school [1] and similar projects. The topic of alternative schooling systems is quite fascinating. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summerhill_School

For a US-based variation of democratic schooling, check out the Sudbury Valley School: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudbury_Valley_School

Re: Young children would rather explore than get rewards

#90

Post by rpastuszak »

adrianN wrote: post #24
kqr wrote: post #4

For anyone interested in this type of stuff, I can recommend reading Drive . Briefly, human behaviour can be motivated for extrinsic and intrinsic reasons. The rewards in this article are extrinsic motivators. Exploring is rewarding in an intrinsic way; it is a strive towards autonomy, mastery, and purpose. In adults (and in older children) applying extrinsic motivators kills intrinsic motivation. Once the extrinsic…

I often see criticism of the school system like yours. I think it comes from a perspective of a fairly intelligent, self-motivated individual, probably from a family that valued education. However many children lack one or more of those factors. For them the intrinsic motivation is to play video games all day, or talk to their friends, or smoke weed. There is no intrinsic motivation for most children to learn all the…

> However many children lack one or more of those factors. [...] For them the intrinsic motivation is to play video games all day, or talk to their friends, or smoke weed.

We grossly overestimate the amount of kids who fall into this group, maybe because we're priviledged enough exclude ourselves from it.

> I think the school system is fairly good at forcing all children to learn at least a little about all subjects.

Dude, ca. 20% of people in the US are either illiterate or functionally illiterate. How is that good?[1]

Unless, given your previous point, they're too busy playing computer games or getting high on Satan's lettuce?

Pardon the sarcasm, but this is an extremely dangerous mindset as it distracts us from the actual problem.

Edit: source

[1] https://www.libraryjournal.com/?detailStory=How-Serious-Is-A...

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