We found that underlying beliefs about motivating students did not evidence themselves in motivational practice. Furthermore, the teachers' personal reflections on their teaching reflected motivational beliefs but were, again, rarely evidenced in motivational practice. In belief, all the teachers supported a learning is living approach to motivation. Only one teacher maintained continuity between motivational belief, practice, and reflection. Believing that learning is living but showing that learning is an imposition is a dangerous role for education to play in the development of at-risk students.
Intellectual engagement is a crucial factor in learning.
Many traditional public schools and school reform efforts fail to consider engagement in their curricular programming. These design principles are based on theory and research findings from the study of motivation, and from cognitive and pedagogical theories. Between Spring 1995 and Spring 1998, I conducted a design experiment in which I cycled several times through a process of design, operation, evaluation, and redesign of a small-scale passion curriculum known to participants as the Video Crew. In its current instantiation, the Video Crew is an after-school and weekend program operating in a large urban public elementary school. Through a combination of quantitative and qualitative analyses of video and audiotape of Video Crew meetings and of artifacts produced by the participants, I will describe the passion curriculum design principles in terms of their effectiveness in creating an intellectually engaging learning environment.