session 9 materials

I've posted all of the materials from last night's class, plus a couple of bonuses. The long audio from last night is primarily for Kristina and Navdeep. Bonus materials include the Charlie Rose interview with Yo-Yo Ma and James Taylor, plus a small selection of readings about future time perspective.

session 9 @ learn section

Thanks for the great course! I will be contacting each of the five groups about their blogs with audio feedback sometime before December 25th (although maybe not much earlier than that).

On a completely different note, if you have not had the chance to see the Malcolm Gladwell video (3 posts down), then take the time to treat yourself to this presentation. He raises a few issues which have direct implications for motivation. And he's funny.

journal of educational psychology

About four days ago a new issue of the Journal of Educational Psychology was published (volume 100, number 4). As a student in the L&I doctoral program you always want to check out new issues of JEP (this really should be a habit you practice every three months).

The new issue, like many issues before it, contains a mix of articles about cognition and motivation as it relates to learning. The new issue contains 6 motivation-centric articles. I suggest checking out all of the articles to identify ones of interest to you.

One article in particular, seems to have widespread appeal and is titled, "Supporting students' motivation, engagement, and learning during an uninteresting activity." The author, Hyungshim Jang, combines self-determination theory with interest theory. But the most interesting aspect of his study is how he manipulates using a rationale (in written form) before students begin engaging in an uninteresting activity. Perhaps just as important for some of you: there's very clear next steps that need to be taken based on this study (i.e. he gift wraps a future dissertation).

Check out all of the motivation-related articles:

JEP November 2008 issue motivation articles

get happy!!

Nope, I'm not referring to Elvis Costello's classic Get Happy!! CD. Instead I'm referring to an article printed in the Washington Post, New York Times, and San Francisco Chronicle today titled, "Study finds happiness is infectious."


This is a newspaper report about one research study, but is nonetheless interesting (perhaps provocative). Check it out, even if you're feeling happy:

happiness newspaper article

malcolm gladwell

Malcolm Gladwell writes for the New Yorker and has also written a few books over the past years, the most famous being The Tipping Point. Below is a 17 minute video where he discusses human potential. It may have some interesting nuggets in it for you to consider. Optional viewing.

"Pop sociologist and best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell has honed in on a profound new question: what separates extraordinary and average people? Discussing findings from his much-anticipated book Outliers, Gladwell details how we're squandering human potential everywhere from the football field to the classroom - and what we can do to change it."

@ Yahoo! Video