Creative abilities and rewards

The Puzzle of Motivation

“Autonomy, mastery, purpose, this are the building blocks of the way of doing things”. This is the most important part of Dan Pink’s Ted Talk on The Puzzle of Motivation. The whole presentation is about how rewards have not worked in the real word as they have killed creativity.

         The presenter remarks and gives several examples of companies that have been successful even when they do not offer rewards to they workers, but instead, they allow them to have autonomy and precisely in moments of “freedom”, big ideas have arise.

         Thinking about education, I can clearly translate these rewards mentioned by Dan Pink into the grades offered by teachers as a reward when students achieve certain goal.  (Or even when points are taken away when they do not achieve some goals).

         Teachers must work in focusing more in students achieving a goal and learning, rather than focusing on a grade, that might narrow their creativity indeed!  Grades do exist, and we need to constantly evaluate, but grading must be a constant process or thermometer thought-out a project but not a goal.

         We must engage them in well-developed projects that include clear instructions and most important, with a clear purpose. As we have been studying recently (PBL), it is very important for students to succeed in connecting their learning to real life.

         An important goal, as teachers, should be to promote creative abilities in our students though projects that really engage them, where that can make meaningful connections to their realities; that should be the reward, to the grade itself.

Image created using Lucidchart.com

Here is an interesting article that expands the discussion about creativity and traditional education.
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