THE ROLE OF MOTIVATION IN FINDING MEANING IN LEARNING

Armand Vincent A. Sese

One famous commercial of a local coffee brand asks the question “Para kanino ka bumabangon?” As simple as it seems, the question tries to make us reflect on what or who motivates us to live and to continually seek meaning in life. Almost all of the time, people do well on tasks that they are motivated at because of the satisfaction they feel on doing them. The extra push gives them the enthusiasm to accomplish the goals without seeing them as a burden.

The concept of motivation has been central to the field of education as well. In the country, one standard expected from teachers is to provide learning environments, opportunities and experiences that will motivate students to learn. Further, empirical researches have established that academic motivation has been linked to academic performance. With these evidences, teachers must find ways on how to motivate students even in distance learning modalities.

One model by which teachers can be guided at is the ARCS model as proposed by Keller. ARCS stands for Attention, Relevance, Confidence, and Satisfaction. Teachers should find means on how to catch the attention of students by the use of different strategies. Relevance should then be established for the learners to find the reason for the need to learn the lesson. As students venture on the process of learning, teachers must guide and scaffold them for them to establish their confidence in doing the tasks. Finally, satisfaction can be gained by the students when they find opportunities to demonstrate their learning.

When all of these are carried out, students can give out one answer to the question raised by the advertisement. “Bumabangon para matuto.”

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The author is Teacher III at Santos Ventura National High School-SHS.