#60 Fostering Self-Determination in Students (Student Well-Being Project)

This weekend I had the opportunity to present at the 101st National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) Conference! This is my 3rd time presenting NCSS and it is always an amazing opportunity to share, collaborate, and build relationships with other educators and bring awesome resources back to my own students. This year I had the privilege of presenting 'Fostering Self-Determination in Students." As part of this presentation, I designed a brand-new student well-being project that I will be rolling out with my own students next semester. I am so excited to share it with you, too! 

Self-Determination Theory
First, a little bit of information on Self-Determination Theory (SDT) and how it relates to classroom instruction. SDT is a theory of optimal motivation. It focuses on how social environments, like your classroom, can facilitate intrinsic motivation by supporting versus thwarting people's innate psychological needs. Specifically, teachers who support autonomy, competence, and relatedness increase intrinsic motivation, curiosity and the desire for challenges in students.

Let's take a closer look at what supporting these needs looks like in the classroom.

Three Psychological Needs

• Autonomy: The desire to regulate one's own behavior. In other words, students need to feel in control of their own behaviors and goals. Teachers who are autonomy-supportive allow students to exercise choice around their learning, and when a choice is not available they explain why the choice is constrained.
• Competence: The belief that one is capable of completing the required task. Teachers who support competence provide the students with the structure needed to allow them to experience success. They are, in a manner of speaking, setting the stage for success through their content instruction, feedback, and supportive learning materials. This will look different in every classroom because the needs of our students vary so greatly.
• Relatedness: The desire to feel connected to others. Teachers who support relatedness are relationship-focused. They are caring, involved, and accepting. This can be both an implicit and explicit part of instruction.

Source

Student Well-Being Project
This semester I took an amazing class at the University of Missouri (Mizzou) on Applied Positive Psychology (ESC_PC 8200). As part of this class I was required to participate in a semester-long well-being project. Our professor allowed us to choose the dimension of well-being that we were most interested in developing. I learned so much from this experience that I was inspired to develop a modified (non-graduate level) version of the same project for my own students!

Here's an overview of the project.

• It is designed to take place over the course of 6-8 weeks. I will be introducing it after we cover the "Stress and Health" unit.
• The students choose one dimension of well-being to explore. I gave them the following options but you can tailor this list to fit the needs of your students: gratitude, self-compassion, acts of kindness, social relationships, coping strategies, savoring, meditation and physical activity.
• The students choose their topic based on their personal interests and needs. They use the Fit-Person Diagnostic Inventory to help guide their selection.
• The students research their topic. I am providing them with resources but you can certainly ask your students to find their own resources depending on the skills you want them to develop.
• The students set a SMART goal based on their research. I am asking them to track their happiness level each week using the Oxford Happiness Inventory to determine the effectiveness of their action steps.
• The students collect data over a series of weeks. This will vary based on their action steps and chosen interventions.
• The students analyze and share their results in a brief presentation. I have asked them to focus on a summary of the research, a description of their intervention, and an overall conclusion supported by their data.

You can find my entire project and the presentation template here.

The explicit purpose of this lesson is to help my students increase their overall well-being. However, I designed it with the three fundamental psychological needs of autonomy, competency, and relatedness in mind.

• Autonomy: The students are given a voice and choice over the topic that they are interested in studying, the research that they are using, the goals that they are setting, and the invention that they are choosing. Allowing students a voice and choice in their learning is imperative to fostering student autonomy. However, you will notice that the research process is highly structured. I made this decision based on the needs of my own students. They definitely need a little more support this year as they reacclimate to the traditional learning environment.
• Competence: The students are given a clear structure that sets them up for success. I want them to feel capable of completing a research project before releasing them into the wilds of post-secondary education. The scaffolding of the weekly expectations allows students to learn this process at their own pace with plenty of competence-based feedback from me.
• Relatedness: One of the things that I am most looking forward to with this project is getting to know my students even better! Not only will I learn more about them through their topic selection and goal creation, I also built in time to meet with them one-on-one to discuss their progress.

The past few years have been full of turmoil and this has greatly affected our students' well-being. Through this project, I would like to empower them to make meaningful changes and improve their own well-being. You may recall me talking about this in my Glimmers of Gratitude post, but the work of Sonja Lyubomirsky shows that our intentional activities can have a huge impact on individual well-being. She calls this the "40 Percent" Solution. Although it may be impossible to change one's genes or even life circumstances, it is possible to change one's thoughts and behavior. Her body of research explores different ways to increase happiness through the use of intentional activity (Lyubomirsky, 2007, p. 20-22). This project targets that 40%. I think it is time to empower our students and let them experience of benefits of positive interventions in their own lives. Hopefully, they will establish some lifelong well-being habits.

I would love to hear about how you encourage autonomy, competence, and relatedness in your own classroom! Please share in the comments below!

References

Activities for Teaching Positive Psychology: A Guide for Instructors, J. J. Froh and A. C. Parks (Editors) Copyright © 2013 by the American Psychological Association. All rights reserved.

Compton, W. C., & Hoffman, E. (2020). Positive psychology: The science of happiness and flourishing. SAGE. 

Lyubomirsky, S. (2013). The how of happiness: A practical guide to getting the life you want. Piatkus.

Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. American Psychologist, 55(1), 68–78. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066x.55.1.68 

Teacher Professional Development on Self-Determination Theory–Based Design Thinking in STEM Education.” Educational Technology & Society, vol. 24, no. 4, Oct. 2021, pp. 153–165. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsjsr&AN=edsjsr.48629252&site=eds-live&scope=site.