How To Effectively Motivate Your Students

If you’re a teacher, the chances are that you’ve been teaching students continuously and making attempts to form small groups. Even then, there would be one or two students who won’t understand. For a change, try behavior modification or management techniques and see if you get the desired actions or behaviors from the students. You might conclude by stating that learning issues, emotional traumas, or personal matters are taking center stage. The reality is, in most cases, it’s we who aren’t motivating our students enough.

Of course, individual differences exist, and thankfully, some are intrinsically motivated (unlike the few). Naturally, they have a better understanding of what it means to succeed and how they must strive to reach their goals. Besides, the subject might be interesting too! On the other hand, you can try incentives like rewards, appreciation, and small gifts to prove effective extrinsic motivators. All in all, these below-mentioned techniques should work well.

Promote A Culture Of Growth

Maintain a growth mindset for your kids. The level that we consider as ultimate may sometimes be a little too overwhelming or even unachievable for them. In these situations, as a teacher, try and fix up small goals for students and check to see if he or she has made any progress towards the same. If students see they’ve made more success stories than earlier, they will stay motivated through the process. Ensure you celebrate their victories regardless of how small or big they are.

Make The Targets And Expectations Clear

You need to set before your students is the target, and only then can you expect high or low motivation from them. At the very outset of any lesson or teaching unit, teach them what they are expected to know at the end and see if life applications are involved, if any.

So if you teach them money and savings, make them understand that they should know how to save amounts by adding up the end of the lesson. Provide them real-time examples of groceries, small items, or stationeries and see for yourself how far they’re accurate with the money. If required, ask them questions where they would display their knowledge, and thereby, you can assess if the goal set has motivated them to learn.

What Are The Interests Of The Students?

This is exactly where the concept of ‘intrinsic motivation’ comes in. Only when the learning is focused upon students’ interests, the motivation stays. So you might find a new hobby that a certain student prefers to engage in that would propel him or her to get motivated. Try and utilize that if possible in the lesson you’re teaching. Not that it’s possible always, but surely there’s no harm in trying.

For example, take a creative work or find a book that he or she can read to spark interest. You might see students struggling a great deal with maths. From childhood, perhaps he or she has lacked the motivation to improve too. At some point, the student might show interest in cars, technical stuff, or machinery. Work on that in the word problems and see how cars, engines, machine parts can bring him closer to doing the sums.

Rewards And Recognitions Go A Long Way

More than group rewards or for an entire class, students work best when rewarded based on their records and growth. So you can try setting up a rewards system in the room to make them motivated.

Depending on their age, task, or how far they accomplish immediate goals and sometimes even values and behaviors- you can give them awards.

You can place a small chart in the student’s room or on the desk. This would help you keep track of all the positives they have been doing. And that would determine the rewards. This can be a call for the rest of the students. They would get fascinated by seeing how their companions enjoy bonuses, incentives, and awards, especially those who lack motivation.

Ideally speaking, students are best motivated to see how much you care and look after them. It shows how much you wish to see them succeed. Invest time and energy into them, and that would be the biggest motivator.