I tend to think of this concept when I hear people say that they "can't make the student do their work." Imagine the student's motivation like a teeter-totter. On one side you have a bucket of how they feel about themselves and on the other you have a bucket of how they think people feel about them. As instructor's we can't fill the first bucket, but we can fill the second bucket with enough praise that it tilts the seesaw and you dislodge the student from feeling like they're stuck in the mud.

I think it might be helpful to have the students use some key words in their LMS profiles so we (the instructors) can more specifically cater to their needs in all of the classes. This might help withs some of the classes that aren't in the student's discipline directly. Like if we know someone wants to be a cinematographer, there are ways we can help them look at screenwriting in a way that makes the class more productive for them.

A politician recently said that even his best students couldn't perform well when they were dealing with food insecurity and unstable housing. He was talking about middle school students, but the same applies to our grown up students. There's a difference between keeping your life lean enough to keep you hungry for success and not having the means to keep yourself from it adversely affecting your health.

It often comes down to time for adult learners. Prioritizing themselves for long enough to engage with the school materials usually comes at the expense of something else in their life. This time crunch can make it seem like the students are putting off their work until the last possible minute, but in reality they often are doing as well as they can with the situation they have been dealt.