Motivation can be external or internal. Each of us uses a mixture of the two to get our work completed.
This pandemic, and particularly remote education, has compelled many students to become better acquainted with internal motivation.
When the teacher is standing ten feet from you, it’s harder to disengage – much easier when the teacher is on the other side of a computer, and you don’t have to turn your screen on.
When chance motivational interactions don’t happen with teachers, colleagues, friends, classmates – you have to find that motivation yourself.
When the joy of a lively classroom discussion is stunted by a zoom-muted class, it’s easy to not contribute, and much harder to stay engaged with the material.
There has been a spectrum of student response to this challenge. Some engage with it, and have appreciated discovering strength in themselves. Others have completely disengaged, doing the bare minimum to get by (or less). Still others want desperately to find that internal motivation, but don’t know how, and are floundering with the loss of the structure they need to succeed.
In all cases, we teachers can do better at engaging with all students, commending students for their successes, counseling students on failures, and offering grace to all. It’s an utterly new world of education, and not one we were all equally ready for.