How to get your students motivated?

How to get your students motivated?

By: Sally Atef.

"In motivating people, you have got to engage their minds and their hearts. I motivate people, I hope. By example and perhaps by excitement by having productive ideas to make others feel involved" Rupert Murdoch.

     How can students be self-motivated? Is the teacher responsible for motivating students? Is the educational procedure effective? Do individual differences affect motivation? Is age responsible? Is the way children are brought up influence their motivation?  

   No one can force a student to learn something but a well-qualified teacher should devise various techniques to involve students in learning and create the desire to learn in them.

Motivation as a term:

        Motivation is derived from the word "motivate" which means: being the motive of; giving a motive or incentive to. It is a psychological feature that refers to the inner power that controls goal-oriented situations and leads the living thing's behaviors. It is present in every life functions; simple or complicated acts e.g. eating is motivated by hunger and education is motivated by the desire for knowledge.

              In education , it means to initiate ,guide and maintain the desire for knowledge in the students and to get them involved in the lesson and attract their attention to participate actively and never shroud .   

      

How does your brain work during motivation?

 

     Emotion can affect the brain during the learning situations. If any disturbance happens in the relationship between the teacher and the student it will force the brain to spend glucose to face tension instead of using it in cognitive tasks. When we feel tension our adrenal glands release a peptide called Cortisol. When we face an environmental or an academic danger. This leads to a chain of physical reactions such as: immune deficiency and hypertension (Kotulak, 1996).

 

        Researches in this field revealed that the failure to find motivating learning environment and taking into consideration the students' interests and knowledge leads to a week learning practices and a limited learning as creating a rich learning environment full of new learning experiences and challenges is a vital issue for brain growth(Slavkin2002).

 

         (Smilktiem1993) confirmed that dendrites, synapses and neural networks grow from motivating and challenging experiences. In addition, she emphasized on the importance of creating a motivating environment and making the classroom a safe place to learn in.       

  a synapses cell

          Researchers give due care to the motivation process as the existence of cognitive potentialities which have a biological basis and the suitable environment context are not enough for the growth of a high standard of mental efficiency, but there should be a motivation or a goal which motivates the learners to make the best use of these potentialities.

Suggestive ideas for motivating students:

  

1-                    It is bitter for the teacher to realize how the learners are different in their attitudes towards learning and innovate learning situations which suit individual differences.

2-                    It is advisable for the teacher to use a variety of teaching strategies to encourage critical thinking and the ability to evaluate and form opinions about and comment on a range of subjects among the students.

3-                  Practicing verbal and nonverbal communication is important to encourage the learners during the teaching process.

4-                  Learning the students' names is of great help for the teacher. It helps break the ice between them. (S)He should great them in a friendly way. Their relationship should be based on a mutual respect.

5-                        A teacher may ask the students if there is anything worrying them. (S) He should be flexible listening to their complaints and try to help them if possible.  

6-                        Taking to account the multiple intelligences theory and rewarding the students according to it. For example: students who have a linguistic intelligence should be rewarded by giving them a book or crosswords. Students with a logical-mathematical intelligence should be rewarded by giving them a puzzle or a calculator. Musical intelligence's students can be rewarded by a musical instrument.

7-                        Using the teaching methods according to the students' intelligences is very significant in motivating them i.e. for the linguistic intelligence's students the teacher can use discussion. (S)He may use critical thinking or problem solving for logical-mathematical intelligence's students. (S)He may also use intonation for musical intelligence's students and cooperative learning for those who have interpersonal intelligence.

8-                        It is favorable to use the learning activities according to the students' intelligences.e.g. for the linguistic intelligence's students,(s)he use "read", "write" or "speak", for those who have logical-mathematical intelligence,(s)he may use "measure" and "draw" or "imagine" for spatial intelligence's students.

9-                        Learning more about student's learning style e.g. visual, auditory, spatial, verbal or social is very important in motivating students since the teacher can make (her) his activities suitable for these styles.

10-             Teachers should never disencourage students for things they do not know or can not do. They should take into account students' standards and apply standards-based curricula and make sure that the learning experiences are suitable for them.

11-             Helping the students to find out a connection between what they had studied and real-life situations i.e. situational learning and dialogues.

12-             It is vital to make the teaching atmosphere filled with discussions in stead of being an atmosphere of negative listening. Classrooms should be student oriented not teacher oriented ones.

13-             It is significant in motivating students to make the teaching atmosphere free and to encourage them to think over ideas despite their strangeness. Teachers should be prepared to tolerate errors more.

14-             Creating a self-confidence feeling in the students and never let them feel unable to fulfill the task is a notable point when motivating students because it helps to develop emotional identity.

15-             Teachers can use sense of hummer in a suitable way whenever possible by using puns and exaggerations.

16-             It is bitter for the teacher to use learning styles that help the student to feel that they are a team in which every individual, however (her) his ability has a role in managing the task. Students need to speak and work together cooperatively when asked and they need to help each others when directed as learning is a social process in addition to being a mental process.

17-             Teachers may create a teaching environment that is marked by learning resources according to their abilities and potentialities.

18-             Teachers should make sure that what they ask students to do has real benefits in real life and encourage them to ask questions like: what is the benefit of…? Have you got an idea about…? What do you know about…?

19-             Visiting the sites where study takes place e.g. a farm, a factory or a museum and using a more life-like activities and situations and using the activities in purposeful, realistic and meaningful contexts.  

20-             Avoiding over-lengthy or repeated activities as possible and put a suitable time frame for them.

21-             Teachers ought to be enthusiastic and show their love for what they do.

22-             Changing teacher's roles regularly is of great help for the teacher. A teacher has so many roles to perform e.g. planner, instructor, manager, controller, decision maker, advisor and assessor.