Designing a Creative Context that Fosters Student Motivation and Engagement in Learning

Abstract

Student attitudes and motivation play a significant role in their literacy learning (Turner & Paris, 1995). Good educators intrinsically know that the nature of motivational change depends, to a large extent, on the characteristics of the learning environment. When teaching students to become literate, it is important to balance affective and cognitive aspects of literacy development. One way to achieve this balance is to create integrated instruction contexts that foster student motivation and engaged learning. This article describes an activity-based integrated aviation history context aimed at increasing student motivation and engagement in learning. This learning context is designed around multidisciplinary aviation themes in which curricular areas such as history, science, and mathematics were taught at the same time. It encompasses seven different instructional characteristics designed to engage students and cultivate greater learning environments. Contexts that are intellectually stimulating and active places of learning pose challenging and developmentally appropriate problems for students. The learning environment should set up relevant investigations and encourage students to think about the results of these investigations. Inferences about student achievement, potential, motivation, and literate ability are made by assessing student work generated in the creative context.