Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose

I was in Curacao attending a professional development convention for this region of the world:  The AASSA conference.

One of the underlying themes I took away from this professional development experience is the absence of the 3 critical elements of motivated individuals: Autonomy, mastery, and purpose.  This revelation brings back memories of watching this RSA talk about what motivates people to do great things.

Another recurrent theme of this conference is the use of technology.  Though I have my reservations about the immersion of technology in the learning environment of high school students, I can't help but agree that technology has become a vital component of a student's learning experience (for better or for worse).  An educator's conundrum in this arena can be summarized in a single question: How does an educational organization create a safe learning environment within a classroom when students are granted unrestricted access to broadband devices within classrooms?  It is either too authoritarian with the censorship and firewalls, or it's too open leading to the distracted and uninterested student.  How does a school capture the middle ground?

Though we rarely discuss these issues outside of egregious violations, it seems that the high school students are too little, too late to learn and demonstrate responsible online practices (one of the learning points from the keynote speakers - by the time they're in high school it's too late).

Below is the RSA clip I mentioned earlier, as it is posted on YouTube.