When I was being interviewed for the post of Head of ICT and Computing and ICT Co-ordinator at a school some years ago, we eventually came to the part where the chair of Governors says:

“So, do you have any questions for us?”

In response, I asked the headteacher what he would count as an indicator of my success in the job should it be offered to me and should I accept.

“I want teachers banging on the doors of the computer labs demanding to be let in.”, he replied.

A bit of a tall order, considering that the corridors of the computer labs part of the school resembled the set of High Noon. (I momentarily considered achieving that happy outcome by keeping the doors of the computer labs well and truly locked, but decided that it could be a career-limiting move.)

Motivating people to do things is pretty difficult, or can be. Even motivating yourself to do something can be an uphill task. So how do you go about it?

One approach might be to borrow from Gretchen Rubin’s 4 tendencies framework. Now, I have to say I am always a trifle cautious about apparently ‘popular science’-type solutions to complex questions, and I also have to admit that my expertise in this particular approach is confined to a six minute video I watched (see below). I also suppose that you may run into difficulties if you try to persuade your colleagues/co-workers to take the motivation questionnaire (although once they have taken it you will know exactly what to do to motivate them to take it!). Nevertheless, the outline given in the video below may suggest ways you might try to motivate some of the other people you work with to try using ed tech in their lessons. At the very least, the approach underlines the fact that when it comes to encouraging others there is not usually a one-size-fits-all answer.

There’s more about the four tendencies or four types of self-motivation framework and book here:

The four tendencies

The video below is taken from a talk at the RSA in London.