Most teachers have taught students who do the work without ever seeming convinced that the work has much to do with them. They complete the assignment, answer the questions, and may even earn a score that suggests they understand the content. From a distance, everything looks fine. Yet something seems to be missing.

The student is present, but there is little evidence of curiosity and connection between the learning and what the student might become, contribute, or care about beyond the instructional task presented by the teacher. In other words, the student may be doing school, but not yet seeing how learning could shape his or her life. That distinction matters for Marzano Academies.  Element IXa of the Marzano Academies CBE Instructional Model focuses on inspiring students.

At first, the word inspiration can feel a little soft. It may bring to mind a quote on the wall, a movie clip before a break, or a teacher giving a motivational speech before a test. Those moments may have value, but Dr. Marzano’s treatment of inspiration is more connected to the larger purpose of competency-based education. In the folio, inspiration is tied to student agency and efficacy. Teachers inspire students not simply to make them feel good for a moment, but to help them begin to believe that effort, learning, contribution, and growth can lead somewhere meaningful (Marzano, 2021). We begin to help learners develop the belief that they have the ability, based upon their capacity, to control their lives. The latter is a much more useful definition for teachers.

Inspiration is not decoration added to the “real” lesson. It is part of the classroom and school context that helps students answer a quiet but important question: Is something meaningful possible for me here? In a competency-based classroom, that question matters every day. Students are asked to monitor progress, use feedback, revise work, set goals, seek support, and make decisions about next steps. Those actions require more than procedures. They require learners to believe their actions can make a difference.

Why: Inspiration Connects Belief to Action

Design Area IX focuses on efficacy and agency. Efficacy involves belief. Agency involves action. A learner needs to believe that what he or she does can influence what happens next, and then the learner needs the skill and support to act on that belief. This sounds simple, but it is not always what students have experienced in school.

Some students have learned that school is mostly about compliance: do the work, turn it in, wait for the grade, move on. Others have learned that effort does not seem to change much. They have tried before and still struggled. They may have received feedback they did not understand or grades that told them they were behind without helping them see a path forward.

Some students have also learned that certain futures are for “other people.” They may not say it out loud, but they carry it with them. A good teacher never explicitly says, “This class is not for students like you. It is for students not like you.” So we have to be careful not to unintentionally send the message.

When those beliefs are present, telling students to try harder is rarely enough. Marzano, Scott, Boogren, and Newcomb (2017) define inspiration as occurring when a person recognizes evidence that one or more ideals could actually be true. That definition is important because it moves inspiration away from excitement alone and toward something that creates evidence of possibility. That evidence can be something they hear in a story or in a personal connection they make during a community project. It might also be a comment by an adult who calls out a strength the student did not know others could see. The key is that inspiration gives students something to hold onto when learning becomes difficult.

Additional research on inspiration supports this idea. Thrash and Elliot (2003, 2004) describe inspiration as involving both being inspired by something and being inspired to act. In other words, inspiration begins with an experience that opens a possibility and creates movement. It points the learner toward action.

That is why inspiration belongs in a competency-based model. CBE is not just a structure for moving students through content at different rates. At its best, it helps students develop the habits and beliefs needed to take increasing responsibility for learning. Inspiration gives that responsibility a reason.

Research on purpose also helps clarify the point. Yeager and colleagues (2014) found that when students connect learning to a self-transcendent purpose, meaning a purpose beyond the self, they are more likely to demonstrate academic self-regulation and persistence. This does not mean every lesson has to become a grand life purpose activity. Teachers do not need to make every math problem inspirational. Who would have time for that not to mention how artificial it would feel for the learners.

Students need regular opportunities to see that learning can connect to contribution, identity, future goals, and the world beyond the classroom. They need to see that knowledge is not just something they collect for a grade. It can help them solve problems, understand people, improve communities, create something useful, or become more capable of directing their own lives. That is where inspiration becomes a key part of learning.

How: Inspiration Has to Be Designed With Students in Mind

One mistake schools can make is treating inspiration as an event. They invite a guest speaker, show a video, or read a quote during morning announcements. Students are then expected to walk away inspired. Sometimes they do. Often they do not. Remember, it is excitement about possibility generating action.  The issue is not that those strategies are wrong. The issue is that inspiration is personal. What opens possibility for one student may not do much for another. A story that deeply affects one learner may feel distant to someone else. A gratitude exercise may help one student notice support, while another student may experience it as one more thing adults want them to say.

This is why teachers have to know students. Inspiration cannot be separated from relationships, context, and timing. The folio for Element IXa identifies several ways teachers can inspire students, including inspirational stories and quotations, personal stories, identification of inspiration killers, altruism projects, gratitude, and mindfulness (Marzano, 2021). These strategies are not meant to be used as a checklist. They are options teachers can use based on what students need.

What: What It Looks Like When Inspiration Is Working

When Element IXa is working, the evidence should not be limited to what the teacher planned. The evidence should show up in students. Students may be more engaged in activities designed to inspire them. They may speak more clearly about goals, purpose, or contribution. They may describe a story, project, quote, or experience as something that helped them think differently about themselves or their learning. They may show gratitude in specific ways. They may use mindfulness to pause before responding.

The folio identifies these kinds of student responses as part of the desired effect of Element IXa (Marzano, 2021). This matters because teachers cannot simply assume inspiration occurred because they selected an inspiring activity. The activity is only the starting point.

The real question is what students experienced. Did the story help them see a new possibility? Did the project help them feel their learning contributed to something? Did the quote become language they could use? Did the discussion of inspiration killers help a student recognize a belief that was limiting action?

If the answer is no for some students, that does not mean the teacher failed. It means the teacher has information. The Marzano Academies model asks teachers to monitor for desired effects and adapt when students are not experiencing them. This is especially important with inspiration because students do not all need the same kind of evidence.

At the classroom level, inspiration might look like a student deciding to revise one more time because revision now seems connected to growth rather than punishment. It might look like a learner connecting a proficiency scale to a future goal. It might look like a student who typically avoids leadership agreeing to take a small role in a project because the work feels useful. It might look like a class realizing that what they are learning can help someone else.

A school committed to inspiring students has to ask where students regularly encounter evidence of possibility. Do students hear stories that expand their sense of what they might become? Do they participate in work that connects to something beyond the classroom? Do they see adults modeling purpose, gratitude, reflection, and contribution? Do school routines help students recognize progress, not just completion? Do learners have opportunities to connect their interests and strengths to meaningful goals?

These questions matter because inspiration should not depend on whether a student happens to be assigned to a particularly inspirational teacher. If inspiration is part of the school’s design, students encounter it across classrooms, advisory experiences, projects, exhibitions, community partnerships, and feedback conversations.

Bringing Element IXa Together

Inspiring students is sometimes treated as something extra. It is what we do after the lesson, before the test, during an assembly, or when students seem discouraged. Those moments can matter, but Element IXa suggests a larger role for inspiration.

Inspiration helps students see evidence that something meaningful might be possible. It then connects this belief of possibility to action. It gives students a reason to persist, revise, contribute, and take greater responsibility for their learning.

In a competency-based classroom, that is not extra. Students cannot develop agency if they do not believe their choices matter. They cannot fully use feedback if they do not believe improvement is possible. They cannot set meaningful goals if the goals feel disconnected from who they are or what they might become.

The teacher’s question, then, is not simply, “How do I motivate students?” A better question is, “What evidence can I help students encounter so they begin to believe something meaningful is possible for them?” That evidence comes through in a variety of ways.

Inspiration does not remove the hard parts of learning. Students will still need instruction, feedback, practice, time, and support. They will still make mistakes. They will still become frustrated and they will still need the teacher to guide them. But inspiration can help students understand why the hard parts may be worth facing.

That is the real work of Element IXa. Not to entertain students with grand gestures meant to inspire.  The work is to help learners see a possible future and then a pathway for them to begin to act toward it.

References

Diniz, G., Korkes, L., Tristão, L. S., Pelegrini, R., Bellodi, P. L., & Bernardo, W. M. (2023). The effects of gratitude interventions: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Einstein (São Paulo), 21, eRW0371. doi:10.31744/einstein_journal/2023RW0371

Filges, T., Dietrichson, J., Viinholt, B. C. A., & Dalgaard, N. T. (2022). Service learning for improving academic success in students in grade K to 12: A systematic review. Campbell Systematic Reviews, 18(1), e1210. doi:10.1002/cl2.1210

Marzano, R. J. (2021). Element IXa: Inspiring students in a competency-based classroom. Marzano Academies.

Marzano, R. J., & Abbott, S. D. (2022). Teaching in a competency-based elementary school: The Marzano Academies model. Marzano Resources.

Marzano, R. J., Aschoff, A. S., & Avila, A. (2022). Teaching in a competency-based secondary school: The Marzano Academies model. Marzano Resources.

Marzano, R. J., Scott, D., Boogren, T. H., & Newcomb, M. L. (2017). Motivating and inspiring students: Strategies to awaken the learner. Marzano Resources.

Mettler, J., Khoury, B., Zito, S., Sadowski, I., & Heath, N. L. (2023). Mindfulness-based programs and school adjustment: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of School Psychology, 97, 43–62. doi:10.1016/j.jsp.2022.10.007

Thrash, T. M., & Elliot, A. J. (2003). Inspiration as a psychological construct. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84(4), 871–889. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.84.4.871

Thrash, T. M., & Elliot, A. J. (2004). Inspiration: Core characteristics, component processes, antecedents, and function. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 87(6), 957–973. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.87.6.957

Yeager, D. S., Henderson, M. D., Paunesku, D., Walton, G. M., D’Mello, S., Spitzer, B. J., & Duckworth, A. L. (2014). Boring but important: A self-transcendent purpose for learning fosters academic self-regulation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 107(4), 559–580. doi:10.1037/a0037637