Motivate me... or don't

I have been thinking a lot recently about motivation. It has come up in several situations; work, sport, exercise and life in general and it seems to me that more often than not people are inherently negative. Although perhaps that is just me, in a way, being negative because that is what I notice.

Telling someone they can't do something has 2 possible outcomes. It could elicit the 'screw you' response and make them try that much harder. Or it could make a person believe that they really can't do it. I would definitely fall into the latter category and anyone that knows me will testify to the fact that even if you tell me I can do something there is a fair chance that I still won't believe it.
The flip side being that if you say to someone 'you can do this, you can make that ball, you can lift that weight, this topic is hard but I have faith in the fact that you can handle it' they are one step closer to reaching the target. It will never have the effect of making someone change their own mind from can to can't.

Such is the nature of human beings that you never know which category someone is going to fall into and many people will not give any indications either way some may even change their mind depending on the day. So while setting that baseline at 'I don't think you can do this but by all means prove me wrong' may work for some people it may well leave others sat at home thinking about it for days on end and writing boring blog posts.
However whatever the situation, which could range from stretching that extra half an inch to reach the hockey ball to starting to use a new system at work, a single word of encouragement, 'come on - you can do it', or 'I know it might be hard but if you need help just ask' is to one extent or another going to motivate everyone regardless of their personality and it may just mean the difference between success and not quite making it.

On good form....

In our latest module - Nutrition and weight management - me and the faculty academic decided to hit the 21st century with some real time data collection in class.

"Oh you used clickers, how dreadfully last season darling" is that what I hear you say?

Well no - we did not.

We collected data on 2 different subjects.

The 1st to collect tasting data to be used by students in a course work assignment so there was no pressing need to have the data immediately available at the end of the session but it was fun. However, I did the same session last year and the students filled out the tasting survey on paper instead of on this handy google form (although why I decided to make it purple is anyone's guess) which meant that someone had to put all the data into a spreadsheet by hand. Whereas, with my handy google form (which does work on a smart phone - try it - i dare you ) the spreadsheet was instantly made for me and you get a summary of results in nice little pie charts too. (see right)


Our second data collecting experiment using the same process involved an appetite survey which the students were asked to rate their appetite before and after meals for a day. We had three forms, breakfast, lunch and dinner. This data was used in class as part of a lecture so we put the numbers into a chart, in the way the professor requested, and he used it to illustrate his point using data from the students in the room. This should give you a warm fuzzy feeling caused by a personalised classroom and engaged students but mostly I was just excited to see the prof reffering to my graphs in a lecture!!

Little things to please the geek :)