Each child is different and requires a different motivation. What works for one child may or may not work for the rest of your class. Finding what motivates each student will help increase student achievement. Here are nine methods that may work in your classroom.
Remain Positive
Yelling and threatening students is not an effective way to motivate. Remaining positive and focusing on achievement will motivate students and help to create mutual respect for each individual and for learning. Consider creating a student of the week bulletin board to focus on the positives in each student.
Provide Opportunities for Success
Struggling students need to succeed in some small ways in order to be motivated to achieve in greater ways. Without lowing your expectations, find ways to allow these struggling students to succeed. This may require adding simple questions to homework assignments, or asking a few basic questions when introducing a new topic and ensuring that the weaker students have a chance to answer.
Be Excited
The more excited you are about something, the more excited your students will be. If you find the topic you are teaching boring, so will your students, so find creative ways to teach the most boring lessons. For example, when reviewing material for a test or quiz, turn it into a game of Jeopardy, and play around the world when reviewing math facts.
Allow Students to Earn Rewards
Individual and whole class rewards can be a great motivation, especially when looking for appropriate behavior. This can be as complicated or as simple as you make it. Individual behavior plans can provide specific motivation for individual students while earning a handful of marbles to fill a jar can motivate a whole class.
Teach Teamwork
Have activities that your students can work on together. Group your students for simple projects such as finding a current event to share every week. Have your students work in teams on projects that enable learning through exploration. Consider your student groupings carefully so as to motivate students to work harder and not allow others to pick up their slack.
Public Praise
Make a habit of publicly praising students for achievement. You can even go as far as to create a certificate of achievement, have the student stand to receive the certificate and send it home for the child's parents to display on the refrigerator.
Appropriate Praise
Praise students appropriately. If you are struggling to motivate a child, be careful to not praise him for a non-achievement. Praise him for a job well done. Rewards and praise should not be handed out left and right, instead, they should be selective and appropriate in order to motivate your students.
Teach Problem Solving Skills
Teaching your students to solve problems will allow them to be naturally interested in what they are learning. Providing opportunities for students to make mistakes and figure out how to accomplish a goal will make school more interesting, and thus motivate them to try.
Provide Opportunities for Varied Experiences
Different children will succeed in different areas in their lives. Include opportunities for learning each of the multiple intelligences theorized by Dr. Gardner in 1983. This allows students to succeed in a variety of ways. The more success a student sees in the classroom, the more motivated he will be to continue to succeed.
Motivating students takes a little effort, but the reward is well worth the work. Be creative as you figure out what motivation works for each student in your class. The more motivated your students are, the more learning will take place.
Learn tips on classroom management here.
Jennifer Wagaman - Jennifer is a mother of 2 and has both public, private and administrative experience in the education field.
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