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How to Motivate Your Students with a Book

American Association of Philosophy Teachers Twentieth International Workshop/Conference on Teaching Philosophy (2014)

The Problem As educators know all too well, university studentsespecially those enrolled in introductory classesoften lack sufficient motivation to do as well as they could. A number of hypotheses have been put forward to explain this phenomenon, and quite a bit of work has been done to develop classroom strategies that will help boost motivation levels for students. Like anyone who has taught a college course, I have faced the problem firsthand. Just to mention two notable examples: many students show up to class without having done the required readings, and they put off working on their term papers until shortly before the deadline. There are some known strategies for getting ones students to complete the required readingse.g. give them reading quizzes, assign short reflection papers, select interesting and comprehensible readings, etc. But how can we motivate our students to put forward their best effort on their term papers? In this session Ill offer one promising answer to this question. In short, Ill explain how I motivate my students with a book, and Ill equip the audience with the tools to do likewise. The Project On the first day of class, while discussing the information on the syllabus, I explain to my students that we will be working on an important project throughout the course of the semester. Our project is to write and publish a high-quality philosophy book. To be more precise, the students are expected to contribute individual chapters (their term papers), and I act as the editor of the volume. My job is to ensure that the contributions are polished works of philosophy when they go to press. After the course is completed, I spend some of my free time compiling the individual chapters of the book into a single document, and I write up a title page, a table of contents, a general introduction, and more specific introductory remarks about the contents of the particular chapters. Some time is also spent carefully proofreading and formatting the document. The basic task I assign to my students is simple: study a philosophical issue that interests you and write a high-quality chapter about it. Once the document is ready to go to press, I submit it to a self-publisher and have them print nice, affordable paperback copies for my students. This session will focus on three things: (1) Having a discussion with the audience about the benefits of this class project; (2) Explaining how others can successfully implement this strategy in their classes; and (3) Brainstorming ideas with the audience about how this project can be implemented in different ways in various philosophy classes. In addition, Ill bring copies of the books that my students have written to show the audience what the finished product looks like.

The Benefits I originally came up with the idea of printing my students papers in the form of a book as a way of motivating my students to take their term papers more seriously. By telling them that their work will end up in a book, I want to send the message that I sincerely believe that each of them is capable of producing high-quality work which can earn its place on any bookshelf. This message is one that I reiterate in various ways throughout the course. Doing this serves to motivate students it two different ways, I believe. First, students are motivated by the prospect of having their papers read by other students in the class, who will own copies of the book at the completion of the project. In fact, since I encourage them to purchase extra copies of the book for family members, they may arguably be motivated partly to produce a good work of philosophy for the sake of having it read by their friends and relatives. In short, the prospect of third parties having access to their work serves to enhance the students efforts with their contributions. The second way in which the students are motivated by this project is, perhaps, more important. Aside from caring what other potential readers will think of their papers, the students are motivated to do their best work because, for most of them, this is likely to be the only book they ever help write. I suspect that students in such circumstances are driven by a desire to write something that they can be proud of, though I leave it to future research to determine whether or not thats right. Why should we think that their motivation to write something they can be proud of is increased when their papers are not merely graded, but also compiled in a book? It seems to me that writing a paper for this purpose is viewed as a more high-stakes situation as compared to writing a paper merely for a grade. Moreover, the project is designed in such a way as to help the students find a philosophical topic that theyre genuinely interested in, which helps foster a serious engagement with the material. In the session, well discuss these issues in more detail, and Ill share some survey data from my students about their perceptions of the book project. How to Implement This Project with Success I will provide the audience with handouts that include detailed instructions on how they can implement this project in their own classes. Since Im already familiar with the process, Ill talk about common problems to avoid. Additionally, well look at a number of strategies that will help ensure that the students are fully engaged in the process of creating the book, from beginning to end. To list a few examples: (1) Use some class time to have your students brainstorm titles for the book and vote on the one they like best. (2) Leave it up to the students to decide what to do for a cover for the book. The first time I implemented the project in class, a friend of mine who does graphic design graciously volunteered to create five or six possible book covers, and the students subsequently voted for their favorite. But another good idea is to encourage the students themselves to come up with a design for the consideration of the rest of the class.

(3) As an assignment, have your students come up with a design for the format of the interior of the book. For instance, have them design a table of contents, or a sample chapter. Then, as a class, decide which format should be used for the book. (4) Have a peer-review assignment where students exchange a draft of their papers and provide each other with helpful feedback. Using these strategies (and others to be discussed during the session) helps to keep students engaged in the project. They feel a sense of ownership for the book theyre producing, which can serve to motivate them even further to put forward a good effort with their individual chapters. Brainstorming Ideas for Future Books I have used the book project in my introduction to philosophy classes. That class is designed around the theme of philosophical dialogue. Consequently, all of our required readings are dialogues, and the contributions to the class book are philosophical dialogues on topics that the students choose for themselves, with some guidance. Although this format works great, those who prefer to have their students read and write formal philosophy papers can of course make use of this project just as well. In the session, well brainstorm some ideas for using the book project in different ways and in different classes, and well discuss the proposals we come up with. Additionally, Ill share some of the ideas that Ive come up with, which I intend to implement in some of my classes in the future. Here are two examples: (1) In an introductory ethics class, have the students pair up to write opposing chapters on moral issues. This sort of book would follow the basic pattern of the popular Contemporary Debates in Philosophy series by Wiley-Blackwell. (2) In an intermediate-level philosophy course, have the students select a topic and write an informed encyclopedia entry about it. For instance, in an epistemology course, a student can research and write an entry for foundationalism, external world skepticism, the Gettier Problem, etc. Handouts Ill produce and distribute detailed handouts which explain the steps one needs to go through in order to implement this project in ones classesfrom the planning stage all the way to the printing stage. This will allow participants in the session to begin using the book project in their classes immediately, if they so desire. Other Details No equipment is needed for this presentation. This session is suitable for either a 60-minute presentation or a 90-minute presentation.

References Ames, Carole A. (1990) Motivation: What Teachers Need to Know, Teachers College Record, 91 (3), 409-421. Barkley, Elizabeth F. (2010) Student Engagement Techniques: A Handbook for College Faculty (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass). Jang, Hyungshim (2008) Supporting Students Motivation, Engagement, and Learning During an Uninteresting Activity, Journal of Educational Psychology, 100 (4), 798-811. Nilson, Linda B. (2010) Teaching At Its Best: A Research-Based Resource for College Instructors (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass). Williams, Kaylene C. and Caroline C. Williams (2011) Five Key Ingredients for Improving Student Motivation, Research in Higher Education Journal, 12.