From a Quora Question: How does a teacher convince their students to do something?
Oh Geez! That is the million dollar question! How to motivate the unmotivated.
Here is what worked for me:
Hook your students into “wanting” to know more because you have stimulated their curiosity about the topic during your opener. This could be a short video clip, case study, hands-on activity, demonstration or a true story. Example: For a lesson on ions, I started by showing my students a short video of an ionic foot bath advertisement that was “selling” that the foot bath would remove toxins through the bottoms of your feet. I knew it was a scam but my students did not. I challenged them to find out if this was true. Can you really pull toxins out of your feet and do a full body “cleanse” using ions? My students were intrigued and what followed was a multi-day lesson on ions. My students learned a LOT and even more than I expected.
Make your lessons relevant to daily life. This may take some thought on the teacher’s part but once you do this, the students will be more interested because they see the value in the lesson.
Have students work in teams of two. Most, not all, students are more motivated to work if they are working as partners. Set your lesson up with partner shares, team work and collaborative activities and your students will be more likely to engage.
Use a timer. I used a timer EVERY day. When students see that the time to work on an assignment is limited they are more likely to get to work.
Be excited about your own lesson! If you like your lesson, then this will show and your students will feel that enthusiasm. It’s infectious.
Find out what’s going on if a student disengages frequently. Sometimes a student will come around if they can share with you or a counselor what is bothering them. That student may need to see a counselor. It’s o.k. if one or two do not engage despite your best efforts. There may be a serious problem that supersedes anything else for that student.
Reduce the fear of looking or feeling stupid. This is a big problem for most students. They do not want to look dumb in front of others so they often just quit. In this way, they can say that they didn’t do well because they didn’t do the assignment, not because they didn’t understand it. How can you reduce this fear? Make it clear that we ALL have times that we don’t understand something and so feel confused. That is a NORMAL part of the learning process.
Final Thought: It is not easy to motivate all of your students but if you do all 7 steps listed above you should have all but a few of your students working happily or maybe all of them!
Comments