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Plussing Method: Using the Plussing Method to Improve Intrinsic Motivation

Brett Ilie

Manhattan College: Education 403

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Abstract:

This paper entails my 15 hours spent working in an 11th grade English classroom in a

charter high school in the Bronx. While in the classroom, I figured out a problem students had,

researched to fix that problem, and came up with solution to try and fix the problem. As I talked

to the teacher, I learned that two individual students named Charlie and Ivan had a hard time

finding motivation to do any work. Instead of doing work, they would just sit at their desk and do

nothing or they would distract the people around them who were actually doing work. As I

researched ways to improve intrinsic motivation, I found the plussing method and from there, my

motivation launched to help students be motivated to do work. I devised a plan that in theory,

would help them improve their motivation. In the end, one student really benefited from this

method while the other still faced challenges.

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Introduction:

While observing an 11th grade English classroom run by Ms. Johnston in an urban

setting, I found that a few students lacked intrinsic motivation. In other words, they lacked inner

motivation to bring themselves to do their work. Often times, while the other students did their

work, these two students, Charlie and Ivan, would sit in their seats day dreaming/napping or

would try to distract other students. After two weeks of observing these students and how they

worked, I started coming up with a plan that could try and boost their motivation. The initial two

weeks helped me learn about the student and how to help them.

When coming up with a plan, one of the first things I researched was motivation. I

quickly learned about intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation is the inner

motivation you have in yourself and extrinsic is outside motivation others may give you. I

wanted to learn what it is that makes people have more intrinsic motivation and how I can boost

students motivation. After looking through a few methods, my favorite method to help motivate

students was the plussing method. The plussing method is another form of constructive

criticism where teachers or peers add or plus onto the original idea of the person.

Instead of taking an idea and challenging it, we take the ideas that the students have and

add on top of it in other words, we plus to their original idea. When doing this, students feel

validated in their responses. For one student, Charlie, this worked very well. In just a few

sessions, the cooperating teacher and I noticed he became more likely to do work on his own

without a teachers presence. For Ivan, it did not work as well. My hypothesis was that if

students were given the plussing method where teachers added onto students ideas, then the

overall intrinsic motivation from the students would improve.

Research:
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The first research article I looked at was at the Intrinsic motivation: an overlooked

component for student success article. This research article looks at students with high and low

intrinsic motivation and then compares it to the students success in the course. This research was

tested on 159 college medical students to see who had what type of motivation and then who was

more successful in that course. The researchers running the study said they asked two important

questions 1) What percentage of our class has low intrinsic motivation? and 2) Do students with

low intrinsic motivation have lower academic performance? Overall, students with low intrinsic

motivation were less successful in the class.

The next research article I looked at was the Strategies for Helping Students Motivate

Themselves article. This research often discusses different ways to improve students

motivation. The first way they discusses is autonomy, or giving students a say in their work and

what they do. Next, it discusses the plussing method where teachers plus onto students ideas

to improve their work. Lastly, it discusses four ways to improve students motivation: 1. Take a

genuine interest in your students. 2. Act friendly in other ways. 3. Be flexible, and keep our eyes

on the learning goal prize. 4. Don't give up on students. These four ways they believe could help

improve students motivation all together.

Lastly, I researched the plussing method and found How Pixar Transformed their

Criticizers into Creators: The Magic of Plussing. This article uses a study that finds that

plussing was a great way to improve ideas. Instead of shutting down workers for their ideas,

they have to add onto ideas. No one was allowed to make any criticism unless they had

something to add or elaborate upon. The whole purpose is to allow people to believe their ideas

are just as important as the next person and sparks creativity. Instead of using words like yes,
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but we should use yes, and This is a simple way to get students to feel validated and

important leading them to do more work.

Making My Plan:

After deciding that intrinsic motivation was what I wanted to focus on, I had to do

research on it. I needed to know exactly what intrinsic motivation is, why people were more

intrinsically motivated than others, and how to improve students motivation. From there, I

worked with the teacher, Ms. Johnston, to make a plan to work with Charlie and Ivan. Both

students were students who had trouble doing their work on their own and were not really

motivated to do anything.We decided that when students were doing individual work (which was

usually every day) I would work in a small group with these two students on what they were

supposed to do.

As time progressed, we had different tasks to work on together: answering reading

questions, writings essays and paragraphs, preparing for tests, and preparing for new books. I

made sure that each time I went into the classroom I was prepared to answer the students a

certain way, aligning with the plussing method. With this method I would answer in ways like

yes, and, what if, how might we do this?, or explain a little more. In no way would

I shut students down for their efforts or responses but instead, I tried to add onto it. I would

connect what they are saying to their overall task and help guide them to improvement. It is

taking the students ideas and adding onto it rather than dismissing it. This method allows

students to feel like their initial instincts are being acknowledged, correct, and they can trust

themselves to work on their own, not just with the teacher. At the end of my time there, I would

evaluate whether the students grades/work flow improved or stayed the same.

Execute The Plan:

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I was in the classroom a total of 10 times, two times to observe, seven of which were

used executing my plan, and the last day to evaluate progress. The first day of my plan, day 3, I

was nervous to work on reading questions with Charlie and Ivan. But as soon as I started helping

the two students answer their chapter questions I knew it was going to be a positive experience.

On this day I worked with the students to answer reading questions. We worked together and

wrote out their answers in their notebooks. If Charlie or Ivan asked a question, I was there to

help plus their idea after responding with what do you think? Once I got their initial

thoughts, I was able to add onto it and guide them to the correct answer. From talking things out

they were able to answer their own question.

By the seventh time I was there, day five of the plan, the students were writing an essay

and it was a great time for me to be using the method. Their essays were finding literary elements

in the book they just read and trying to persuade the reader of its importance in the book. Instead

of working in the usual small group, Charlie and Ivan were in their normal seats working alone

and I would bounce back and forth in-between the two. Not only did it give me personal time to

work one-on-one with them, but it allowed them time to work without me. It was important for

them to think on their own and if needed, can ask me for help. In this particular instance, Charlie

questioned everything he wrote. He constantly needed reinforcement that what he is doing is

correct and works well.

I think Charlies lack of self-confidence was a big reason for his lack of intrinsic

motivation. But as I worked with him, he was able to take his ideas and elaborate more and

improve his responses. I asked Charlie to extend more and connect his claims to the main point

to make it clearer, or how could he explain in more detail. I knew this worked because the next

day, when I was not there, he asked Ms. Johnston when I am coming back again because I really
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helped him a lot. Then, he started doing his work on his own. This proved that what I was doing

was working and helping him. By the end of my time there, Ms. Johnston did not have to keep

reminding Charlie to stay on task and to complete his work. He worked on his own and his

grades on both the tests and essays improved.

On the other hand, Ivan still had trouble. Although I did get him to work a little more on

his own without the constant supervision, he still had trouble doing the work and doing it well.

During the reading questions he would work when I asked him questions but only for a certain

amount of time. He would then become bored and stop doing the work. If I stayed near him he

would do work, but if I left, he would last about 10 minutes. As I helped him write the essay, he

struggled to stay on task. In the end, he did not do work as much on his own, compared to

Charlie, but when I worked with him, his test grade improved and he did better on the essay.

Unfortunately I did not have much time to stay around and find alternative solutions to help him.

My last day there was my day to evaluate and see if my plan worked. I left both Charlie

and Ivan alone to do their work and asked Ms. Johnston what her perspective was. Separately,

we both noticed an increase in Charlies work output. He would do more work when either of us

were not near him and we did not have to keep telling him to stay on task. Grade-wise, on the

one test I helped him prepare for, he achieved over 10 points higher than previous tests and on

his essay, his grade also improved. As for Ivan, we both agreed that he still needed some help. He

would do work for a short period of time and then quit. Grade-wise, his grades slightly improved

on average 3 points. Overall, the plussing method worked with one of the students and slightly

helped the other.

For The Future:

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In the very beginning I was nervous to do this action research. Being that it was my first

time really working with 11th graders in a high school in the Bronx, I had good reason to be

nervous. For the future I need to remind myself to be confident. When starting out research,

being confident is important and believing in your ideas can lead to a better outcome. Confidence

is important when working with students, they know when you may not be confident when you

are not. If I truly believe in myself and the plan, the outcome is sure to be more successful.

One thing I really liked was that I had two students to work with. Although as a teacher I

will have almost 30 students in a classroom, working one-on-one in small groups helps me as a

teacher and the students as well. It was also beneficial that the plussing method worked with

Charlie and less with Ivan. Although having it be successful for both is ideal, being able to see

multiple perspectives of something is really important, especially in doing research. As I worked

with Charlie and Ivan I was able to see the way they learned and how I was able to help them.

Not every student learns the same so the best way to learn and accommodate to the students are

to keep trying and coming up with different solutions.

Lastly, I wish I had more time or found another solution for Ivan while I was there. If I

had found another way to help Ivan in my short time there, I could have helped him become

more motivated. Instead of doing a base research, I should have made my research more of a trial

and error type of research. If the plussing method did not work with Ivan the first three days, I

could have moved onto some other way to improve his motivation. Maybe if I was more

confident then maybe I could have seen it was not working at the level I wanted it to be. But for

the future I now know how I want to conduct action research and ways to improve. Overall I am

happy with the way my plan worked out and the results.

Conclusion
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In conclusion, students who struggle with intrinsic motivation can benefit from the

plussing method. If students get the validation that their initial responses could be correct, it

could lead students to being more confidence in doing work, thus being more motivated.

Although it worked with one student and slightly helped the other, I would call my work a

success. Charlie was able to do work on his own and his grades improved. Ivan was able to do

work a little better and his grade slightly improved but not as much. In the future students need

to learn that their thoughts matter and they need to take the first steps.
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Bibliography

Augustyniak, R. A., Ables, A. Z., Guilford, P., Lujan, H. L., Cortright, R. N., & DiCarlo, S. E.

(2016, December 01). Intrinsic motivation: an overlooked component for student

success. Retrieved April 27, 2017, from http://advan.physiology.org/content/40/4/465

Ferlazzo, L. (2015, March 25). Strategies for Helping Students Motivate Themselves. Retrieved

April 27, 2017, from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/strategies-helping-students-

motivate- themselves-larry-ferlazzo

Gogek, D. (2016, August 24). How Pixar Transformed their Criticizers into Creators: The Magic

of Plussing. Retrieved April 27, 2017, from http://www.thinklikeaninnovator.com/how-

pixar-transformed-the-criticizers-into-creators-the-magic-of-plussing/