How would you keep your students motivated?

In my own practice, I found the following to be effective motivating the class --

- Empowering students; offering flexibility of learning (to some extent) ; self-directed learning
- Giving praises when earned
- Being excited and passionate about what you're teaching
- Making goals attainable
- Self/peer assessment

Image Source:  http://www.nadasisland.com/motivation/

Interestingly, from Dan Pink's TED talk, research shows "higher incentives lead to worst performance" It proposes a new approach autonomy that builds more intrinsic motivations - the drive to do things for their own sake, around the desires to do things "because they matter, because we like it, because they are interesting, because they are something important".

Narrowing it down to academic motivation, James Middleston has proposed a model of intrinsic academic motivation ---

First, given the opportunity to engage in a learning activity, a student determines if the activity is one that is known to be interesting. If so, the student engages in the activity. If not, then the student evaluates the activity on two factors—the stimulation (e.g. challenge, curiosity, fantasy) it provides and the personal control (e.g. free choice, not too difficult) it affords. If the student perceives the activity as stimulating and controllable, then the student tentatively labels the activity as interesting and engages in it. If either condition becomes insufficient, then the student disengages from the activity—unless some extrinsic motivator influences the student to continue. If the activity is repeatedly deemed stimulating and controllable, then the student may deem the activity interesting. Then the student will be more likely to engage in the activity in the future. If over time activities that are deemed interesting provide little stimulation or control, then the student will remove the activity from his or her mental list of interesting activities.

What's your opinion towards intrinsic and extrinsic motivation strategies? Have you found one being more effective than the other?

Source: James A. Middleton, “A Study of Intrinsic Motivation in the Mathematics Classroom: A Personal Constructs Approach,” Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, Vol. 26, No. 3, pages 255-257.