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Motivation - Lesson Plan: 3 x 1 hour lessons
A series of 'off the shelf' lesson plans and resources for use in the classroom. These lessons deal with Motivation and are relevant to the following specifications:
- AQA: Module 2, 11.2
- Edexcel: Unit 1, Section 7
- OCR: Module 2872
Aim:
It is advised that students are introduced to the main ideas of motivation theorists through the PowerPoint Presentation [246K] and Motivation Mind Map. The views of these thinkers should form the basis of a discussion about the nature of motivation - the idea that it is not possible to motivate a person could be discussed in relation to the classroom! Educators regularly give students plenty of advice to motivate them to get the best grades possible in exams but every year it seems that students do not take sufficient notice of this advice! Why?
The nature of the motivation in terms of who is the motivated one is relevant here, as well as the example given in the Activity. The discussion can help students to begin thinking about the complexities of motivation in practice and the necessity of treating workers as individuals. It is highly recommended that students are shown an episode from 'The Office' (BBC TV programme) - a resource now widely used as a means of discussing motivation. The programme invariably provides an excellent source of discussion about motivation and is now widely available on DVD.
The main thrust of the lesson asks students to think about two situations where there are key motivation issues to be addressed:
- Case A focuses on a rationalisation programme by an organisation faced with falling sales. The background of major change, a depressed economy and possible redundancies will present a real challenge to students to think about appropriate strategies - hopefully offering more money will not be the first option given the gloomy background being painted!
- Case B provides a different problem - a problem of having a wide range of disparate staff with different reasons for working and different interests as well as different backgrounds. The hint in the case that there are 'rumours' in the organisation is meant to get students to think about work they may have done about the nature of communication and how motivating such rumours may be for the manager as well as trying to think of ways in which the manager can motivate his or her staff! The intention is that students begin to join up their thinking and understand how different aspects of the subject have an impact on a wide range of areas.
Learning Objectives:
At the end of the lessons, students should understand:
- The meaning of the term motivation
- That motivation techniques vary according to individuals and organisations
- The views of key motivational thinkers
- How to apply appropriate motivational techniques to different scenarios
Resources:
Lesson Structure:
Lesson 1
- Use the Presentation to introduce the main ideas of each of the key thinkers in the field of motivation. The specifications do seem to expect an understanding of Mayo, Herzberg and Maslow primarily, but the intention is to provide students with some more recent thinking on the subject to broaden their knowledge. There does seem to be some misunderstanding about the nature of Maslow's hierarchy, for example, that students regularly perpetuate in exam answers - that the hierarchy implies that we spend our lives climbing from one level to another rather than the idea that once a need has been satisfied to a large extent, it ceases to act as a motivator. This does enable students to see links between the thinking of Maslow and Herzberg, for example. Students should be further encouraged not to think of these theories as mutually exclusive, rather as areas which complement each other but which may place a different emphasis on certain things.
The discussions arising out of the Presentation should be guided so that students have some preliminary understanding of the issues they will have to think about in the case study they will be given later. (30 minutes)
- Students are then directed to do some research of their own - a useful site with a large amount of detail has been suggested but students could use text books to investigate the ideas of the key thinkers further. (30 minutes)
Lesson 2
- A bit of light relief - show an episode of 'The Office'. This will take 30 minutes but students should be asked to note down what motivational techniques are being used by Mr Brent (or his line managers) and how these relate to the theories they have been investigating. A short discussion can follow to reinforce the points identified. (45 minutes)
- Introduce the case studies - spend a short time discussing the scenario and getting students to tease out some of the subtleties. These can be put onto the white/chalk board as a reminder as students then begin the task. (15 minutes)
Lesson 3
- Students work on the case study and write up their report.
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