In my previous blog posts, I’ve discussed the importance of emotional intelligence in the classroom to promote student well-being and success as well as incorporating project-based learning to create a more meaningful learning experience for all students. Now I’d like to address another key factor that I believe is essential for learning and growth to take place: student motivation.
Motivation in the classroom can be defined as “the individual’s
desire to participate in the learning process; it involves the reasons or goals
that underlie their involvement or non-involvement in academic activities”
(Wery & Thomson, 2013).
There are two types of motivation: intrinsic and extrinsic; both of which are necessary for optimal student learning, growth, and success. Intrinsic motivation involves “doing something for the pleasure that it gives you rather than for an external reward” (Drake, Reid & Kolohon, 2014). Extrinsic motivation, on the other hand, “occurs when one is rewarded or encouraged by another person or thing” (Wery & Thomson, 2013).
Students, as they get older, often lose their curiosity
and interest in learning new things (intrinsic motivation). As they progress
through the grades, school seems to become increasingly dreadful and students
start to develop a negative attitude towards learning. In many cases, students
will drop out due to the fact that they are not interested in learning, believe
they are not capable of learning and succeeding in school, or they are simply
not motivated to do so.
Throughout my years of schooling, there have been
numerous occasions where I felt extremely unmotivated to learn and did not look
forward to attending school at all. I remember, in elementary school, feeling
like the days just dragged on and that there was no purpose behind learning
most of the stuff we were being taught. To make things worse, I’ve had a few teachers
who you could tell did not want to be there with us, did not care about their
students’ learning, and were uninterested in the subject material themselves;
thus, making it more difficult for students to stay motivated and focused in school.
As future teachers, it is important to address the
issue of motivation in our own classrooms and strive to increase our students’
drive to learn and succeed. But how exactly are we supposed to achieve this?
Many teachers believe that because motivation is an internal process, they have
no control or influence over it. However, this is not the case. Teachers have great
influence on students’ beliefs and attitudes about learning and can surely
create many opportunities for students to engage in learning as well.
Here is a simple checklist created by the British
Columbia Institute of Technology to help instructors assess their ability to
increase students’ motivation (both intrinsically and extrinsically). This
checklist can also help them recognize practices they may not be implementing
in the classroom and areas where improvement is needed on behalf of the
teacher.
There are many ways teachers can increase student
motivation and it can be a bit confusing knowing where to start and how to go
about implementing new practices. An article on Teach.com has provided 5 simple,
yet effective, tips to help teachers motivate students in the classroom. You
can access this article here.
When teachers are enthusiastic about learning and
can clearly demonstrate they care about their students, whether this be by communication
and providing positive feedback to build student confidence, making learning
relevant and being open to different, creative forms of assessment, or by
creating a stimulating learning environment, students become more interested,
engaged and motivated to learn. They will not only put in the effort and energy
into participating in lessons and tasks, but will enjoy the overall learning
process alongside the teacher.
I came across this interesting video which is called
“Drive: the surprising truth about what motivates us.” It is mainly directed
towards us as social beings in the workforce; however, it can certainly apply
to education as well. The video is a bit lengthy and not all of it may relate
to schooling in particular, so the part I found most interesting was at 5:13.
Here the author talks about the three factors that can motivate us and lead to
better performance and overall personal satisfaction.
References:
British Columbia
Institute of Technology. (2010). Increasing student motivation. P. 1-8.
Retrieved from: http://www.bcit.ca/files/ltc/pdf/ja_studentmotivation.pdf
Drake S. M., Reid, J.
L., & Kolohon, W. (2014). Interweaving Curriculum and Classroom Assessment:
Engaging the 21st Century Learner. Don Mills, Ontario: Oxford
University Press.
Teach.com. (N.D.).
Motivating Students. Retrieved from: http://teach.com/what/teachers-change-lives/teachers-motivate
The RSA. (2010). Drive:
The surprising truth about what motivates us. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc
Wery, J., &
Thomson, M. M. (2013). Motivational strategies to enhance effective learning in
teaching struggling students. Support For Learning, 28(3),
103-108. doi:10.1111/1467-9604.12027
Sonia,
ReplyDeleteThis is a great post that connects well with your other posts about how to make students learn and grow. I am also very interested in the idea of student motivation, and you are right by saying that intrinsic motivation seems to decrease through the years. I can even see in myself that I am much more driven by extrinsic motivation than intrinsic. Intrinsic motivation is a much better form for children because it allows them to be more interested and passionate about learning since their motivation is not based on external rewards. I think it is important for us as teachers to find out what motivates our students intrinsically, and I think the best way to start is getting to know you students. If you know your students you will know their interests and therefore can do lessons that will be engaging and interest the students. Students who are interested in the lessons will therefore be more intrinsically motivated to learn about it! Also, I agree with you that if a student feels that you care about them and want them to learn it will also better intrinsically motivate them to want to learn because they have a purpose and can see why learning is important. If we can make learning more about what interests students and relate it to more real life situations, instead of just teaching students that grades are most important then we would have more intrinsically motivated students. Do you think every student could be intrinsically motivated this way? Or do you think that some students just do better with extrinsic motivation through rewards and grades?
Sonia,
ReplyDeleteThis blog based on getting students motivated to learn was excellent! I really want to be a teacher who motivates students and engages them in the learning process but sometimes it is difficult to figure out how to do this. Your blog was very insightful and provided great ideas that I feel I can implement into my future classroom. It was great to realize that even simple ideas such as encouraging students can get them motivated to engage in the learning process. I particularly liked how you started your blog with definitions of motivation in the classroom and extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. The definitions gave readers a clear understanding of your topic before you dove into it fully. When I read about your school experiences, I could immediately relate. I had multiple teachers, especially as I got into middle school and high school, who did not seem to want to be teachers. They didn’t seem to care about building relationships with their students or keeping students engaged in learning; two concepts that we have learned are vital when educating young students. As a student, this made me feel really unmotivated to learn or do well in their classes. I strongly believe that this type of teacher could have detrimental, long-term effects on students who are already unmotivated to learn. Like you, I think that teachers have great influence on students’ motivation to learn and can do this by keeping instruction and assignments engaging. The times when I was most motivated to learn in school were those times where we were doing enjoyable projects and I was fascinated by the topic we were learning about. Additionally, I loved the checklist you provided. I think this type of list would help teachers to reflect on their practices in the classroom and think about new ways to engage students. The students and teacher must have a give and take relationship. It is clear that when teachers put in the effort and energy into the classroom, so will the students. This will create a positive and enjoyable learning environment. As teachers, how can we ensure that students are still engaged and motivated to learn, particularly in older grades? Do elementary school teachers who teach the students when they are younger play a role in influencing students’ views of learning as they progress through the grades?
Great post this week! I loved the video you posted and I really like it is totally relateable to teaching. But mostly when reading your post I was reminded of a teacher that I once had in the 11th grade for sociology. He was a very nice guy, had a great sense of humor, and really connected with his students: everyone loved him and saw him as the coolest teacher. Despite all of these great qualities, it was also a part of his tragic downfall. He did absolutely nothing to inspire intrinsic motivation in his students in terms of mastery and purpose. He seemed to be more concerned about joking with the students than teaching. Then we he did teach he would typically give us chapters of the textbook to read and worksheets to do to submit for grades. It didn’t appear that he took a good look at anyone’s work so many students in my class would cheat off of each other. I watched students do hardly any work and achieve the same grades as the students who truly studied and did their assigned work. For students like me who normally participated and worked hard, it had a negative effect on me. I began to slack off too and cheat on my worksheets because that’s what everyone else around me did and the teacher liked them all just as much. Today in my university education I have come to find that I have a great interest in sociology but I never knew that beforehand even though I took a class on it in high school. I think this just goes to show that as an educator you really need to help motivate your students intrinsically because if you don’t you can indirectly cause them to miss out on developing an interest in the subject. Who knows, maybe with a different experience I would have ended up in a sociology program instead! I think the checklist you presented is a great tool for teachers but I wonder if the teachers that really need to see it the most, like my high school sociology teacher, may not be inclined to just pick that up themselves. How could we get this type of information into the hands of the teachers that really need to see it? In my own opinion I think that this is something that a principal may be able to implement on a school-wide basis but I think that we should adopt these standards nationally as well.
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