Drive strength/motivation is the skill of learning, understanding, and using your desire to reach school, work and personal goals. Motivation is the reason and the drive that makes someone do something. Motivation is the fifth key social/emotional skill in our Success Profiler’s Personal Skills Map and a key to solid Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS). Multi-Tiered Systems of Support is a term used to describe an evidence-based model of schooling that uses data-based problem solving to integrate academic and behavioral instruction and intervention (Florida’s MTSS Project).
Motivation is the Key
Every teacher who has ever worked with a student knows that motivation is the key to learning. With motivation, anything is possible; without it, nothing is possible.
The interesting thing about motivation is that everyone is motivated, but not by the same motivators or reasons. There are two basic motivators:
1. Desire to get something
2. Fear of losing something
Everyone has these two things working deep down inside of them, moving them to do something. It is important to keep in mind that what some people want to get, others may not.
Increasing Motivation Starts with Proper Assessment
Many well-meaning educators will spend hours identifying the fact that Johnny is not motivated to learn, but they do not have a clue how to motivate him. In order to help Johnny, a proper assessment must be administered. Here is where our Personal Skills Map can help.
The Personal Skills Map scales help to identify some of the key social/emotional skills related to academic success. There is a reason that we can boast about over 8.5 million administrations and 120 research projects testifying to the effectiveness of this evidence-based, social/emotional development assessment.
What do Commitment Ethic and Time Management have to do with Motivation?
Everything! Think of it this way: when students score low on drive strength/motivation in the Personal Skills Map, they usually score low on commitment ethic and time management as well. Why? Because all three scales are related and are dependent upon the ability to set and achieve goals. Without a goal, there is nothing to commit to, no reason to manage one’s time and, as a result, no motivation. This is why it is so important to use our Personal Skills Map to help to get to the bottom of why Johnny is not motivated.
Want to try out our Personal Skills Map?
