Intrinsic vs. extrinsic

After watching Dan Pinks TED talk, “The surprising science of Motivation”, it got me thinking about motivation and how important motivation is in the classroom. I believe that having an intrinsic motivated classroom would be much more ideal then an extrinsic motivated classroom. With an intrinsic classroom, the students would be motivated because they want to do something not because they are receiving a reward. Having said this it is important to try and accomplish an intrinsic classroom by getting to know the interests and hobbies of the children so that I can relate the classroom work to something more interesting to them. It is also important to make the information that is being taught interesting and using different learning strategies in order to make the students want to learn and come to class everyday. Having an inartistic classroom would also benefit the students because they would be able to learn better because they actually want to learn the material. For instance it is just like when you are studying. If you are studying to cram and get a good grade you will probably not learn anything and right after the test all of the information would be lost. On the other hand, if you are studying because you want to learn the stuff and think that it is interesting you are much more likely to retain the information. Overall I believe that intrinsic motivation is very important within the classroom.