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8/7/2019 Chapter 4 Some Ideas for Motivating Students
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Some Ideas for Motivating
Students
Robert Harris
Version Date: March 2, 1991
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1. Explain.
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Some recent research shows that manystudents do poorly on assignments or in
participation because they do not understandwhat to do or why they should do it. Teachersshould spend more time explaining why weteach what we do, and why the topic or
approach or activity is important andinteresting and worthwhile. In the process,some of the teacher's enthusiasm will betransmitted to the students, who will be more
likely to become interested. Similarly, teachersshould spend more time explaining exactlywhat is expected on assignments or activities.Students who are uncertain about what to do
will seldom perform well.
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2. Reward.
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Students who do not yet have powerful
intrinsic motivation to learn can be helpedby extrinsic motivators in the form ofrewards. Rather than criticizing unwantedbehavior or answers, reward correct
behavior and answers. Remember thatadults and children alike continue orrepeat behavior that is rewarded. Therewards can (and should) be small and
configured to the level of the students.Small children can be given a balloon, apiece of gum, or a set of crayons.
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Even at the college level, many professors at
various colleges have given books, lunches,certificates, exemptions from final exams, verbal
praise, and so on for good performance. Even
something as apparently "childish" as a "Good
Job!" stamp or sticker can encourage students
to perform at higher levels. And the important
point is that extrinsic motivators can, over a brief
period of time, produce intrinsic motivation.
Everyone likes the feeling of accomplishment
and recognition; rewards for good work produce
those good feelings.
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3. Care.
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Students respond with interest and
motivation to teachers who appear to behuman and caring. Teachers can help
produce these feelings by sharing parts of
themselves with students, especially littlestories of problems and mistakes they
made, either as children or even recently.
Such personalizing of the student/teacher
relationship helps students see teachersas approachable human beings and not as
aloof authority figures.
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Young people are also quite insecure, andthey secretly welcome the admission by
adults that insecurity and error are
common to everyone. Students will attend
to an adult who appears to be a "real
person," who had problems as a youth (or
more recently) and survived them.
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It is also a good idea to be approachablepersonally. Show that you care about your
students by asking about their concerns
and goals. What do they plan to do in the
future? What things do they like? Such ateacher will be trusted and respected more
than one who is all business.
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4. Have students participate.
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One of the major keys to motivation is the
active involvement of students in their ownlearning. Standing in front of them and lecturingto them (at them?) is thus a relatively poormethod of teaching. It is better to get students
involved in activities, group problem solvingexercises, helping to decide what to do and thebest way to do it, helping the teacher, workingwith each other, or in some other way getting
physically involved in the lesson. A lesson aboutnature, for example, would be more effectivewalking outdoors than looking at pictures.
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Students love to be needed(just like
adults!). By choosing several students tohelp the teacher (take roll, grade objective
exams, research bibliographies or
biographies of important persons, chair
discussion groups, rearrange chairs,
change the overhead transparencies, hold
up pictures, pass out papers or exams)
students' self esteem is boosted andconsequently their motivation is increased.
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Older students will also see themselves as
necessary, integral, and contributing parts
of the learning process through
participation like this. Use every
opportunity to have students help you.Assign them homework that involves
helping you ("I need some magazine
illustrations of the emphasis on
materialism for next week; would someone
like to find one for me?").
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5. Teach Inductively.
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It has been said that presenting conclusions first
and then providing examples robs students ofthe joy of discovery. Why not present some
examples first and ask students to make sense
of them, to generalize about them, to draw the
conclusions themselves? By beginning with theexamples, evidence, stories, and so forth and
arriving at conclusions later, you can maintain
interest and increase motivation, as well as
teach the skills of analysis and synthesis.
Remember that the parable method of making a
point has some significant historical precedent.
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6. Satisfy students' needs.
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Attending to need satisfaction is a primary
method of keeping students interested andhappy. Students' basic needs have beenidentified as survival, love, power, fun, andfreedom.Attending to the need for power couldbe as simple as allowing students to choose
from among two or three things to do--two orthree paper topics, two or three activities,choosing between writing an extra paper andtaking the final exam, etc. Many students have aneed to have fun in active ways--in other words,
they need to be noisy and excited. Rather thanalways avoiding or suppressing these needs,design an educational activity that fulfills them.
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Students will be much more committed to
a learning activity that has value for them,that they can see as meeting their needs,
either long term or short term. They will, in
fact, put up with substantial immediate
unpleasantness and do an amazingamount of hard work if they are convinced
that what they are learning ultimately
meets their needs.
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7. Make learning visual.
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Even before young people were reared in a
video environment, it was recognized thatmemory is often connected to visual images. Inthe middle ages people who memorized theBible or Homer would sometimes walk aroundinside a cathedral and mentally attach certain
passages to objects inside, so that rememberingthe image of a column or statue would providethe needed stimulus to remember the nexthundred lines of text. Similarly, we can providebetter learning by attaching images to the ideas
we want to convey. Use drawings, diagrams,pictures, charts, graphs, bulleted lists, eventhree-dimensional objects you can bring to classto help students anchor the idea to an image.
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It is very helpful to begin a class sessionor a series of classes with a conceptual
diagram of the relationship of all the
components in the class so that at aglance, students can apprehend a context
for all the learning they will be doing. This
will enable them to develop a mental
framework or filing system that will helpthem to learn better and remember more.
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8. Use positive emotions to
enhance learning and motivation.
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Strong and lasting memory is connectedwith the emotional state and experience ofthe learner. That is, people rememberbetter when the learning is accompaniedby strong emotions. If you can make
something fun, exciting, happy, loving, orperhaps even a bit frightening, studentswill learn more readily and the learning willlast much longer. Emotions can be created
by classroom attitudes, by doingsomething unexpected or outrageous, bypraise, and by many other means.
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The day you come to class with a bowl on
your head and speak as an alien observer
about humans will be a day and a lesson
your students will remember. Don't be
afraid to embarrass yourself to make a
memorable point.
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9. Remember that energy sells.
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Being energetic in your teaching is amotivating factor in itself; adding energy to
the ideas you want to convey will further
enhance learning and commitment to the
ideas.
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Baseball and Motivation
It has been pointed out that students who are
bored by school and "unmotivated" in the eyes
of the teacher nevertheless find plenty of
motivation for playing a sport. The obviousquestion, then, is, What is motivating about a
sport? Think about a group of young people in a
baseball game. The very things that motivate
them to work hard and do well playing baseballcan be adapted to the classroom. Let's look at
them:
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1. Teamwork.
Humans are gregarious and like being aroundeach other. Young people and adults usually likeworking as a team. Yet often the learningactivities we assign call for individual effort.Young people especially complain that they
don't like doing homework alone, yet we ofteninsist that it be done that way. y designingmore team assignments, we can exploit thebenefits of teamwork, where the weakerstudents will learn by having others help. And, of
course, since teaching someone something isthe best way to learn, the students who teacheach other will learn better than if they werelearning alone.
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Why not let or even encourage your
students to do their homework as a group?
You will still have measures of individual
learning when exam time comes.
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2. Fun.
Sports are fun, exciting, sometimes thrilling,highly emotional. Learning experiences shouldprovide as much fun (or at least enjoyment andsatisfaction) as possible. We sometimes think
that some learning tasks are by necessityboring (like learning definitions, grammar,vocabulary), but perhaps this attitude reflectsonly a lack of creativity on our part. Americansespecially have indulged the myth that workand play are two distinct entities that shouldnever overlap. Work can be fun; it should befun.
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3. Enjoyment of success.
Playing a game provides a constant flow ofaccomplishments and the enjoyment of thoseaccomplishments. Even the team thatultimately loses enjoys, say, a strikeout, a base
hit, a well-caught fly ball, and so forth.Teachers should think about this stream ofsmall but constant ego rewards. reakinglearning into small packages that can beconquered and that will in some way produce afeeling of accomplishment and success willhelp motivate students to go forward, eventhrough very difficult material.
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4. Active.
A baseball game is not passive (like toomuch learning). It requires both mentaland physical activity. Teachers should
strive to make learning always at leastmentally active and perhaps oftenphysically active as well. The studentsshould be responsible for producing
something, rather than just sittingpassively, soaking up the lecture.
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5. Flexibility and Creativity.
Baseball has rules, of course, but there is withinthose rules a large degree of flexibility, so that aplayer has a range of choices and strategies foraccomplishing a given goal. In education, it has
been found that students learn better when thedirections given them have a similar flexibility sothat they can put some of their own creativity--some of themselves--into the assignment. Thefreedom to follow hints, suggestions, and their
own inclination will produce a greater desire toperform and a better long-term learningexperience.
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6. Tangible Thinking.
The game connects thought with the tangible in
that every decision is worked out physically and
its result is seen in three dimensions. This kind
of connection is the best there can be forlearning and remembering, as well as for
providing fun. Teachers should therefore attempt
to connect ideas, concepts, conclusions, and so
forth with physical reality, whether as effects andconsequences or in a symbolic way.
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Bring objects to class that will make or
illustrate a point you want to convey. Call
up students to stand before the class and
give them roles or use them as examplesof something. Connect ideas to pictures or
to visual images in the imagination (that is,
use concrete analogies whenever
possible).
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7. Outside the Classroom.
It has been said that most learning takesplace outside the classroom. It's important,then, for the teacher to prime students to
continue learning after class, to preparethem to be aware, to ask them to applyconcepts in their lives after they leaveclass, to shape their out of class learning
experiences through hints, suggestions,assignments.
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Some professors have a small shelf of
favorite books they encourage students toborrow and read. Some suggest practicalapplications or experiments for students toperform after class. ("Tonight at dinner,
ask your meal partners how they woulddefine 'need' and compare it with thedefinition we've developed in class." or "Asyou watch TV this weekend, look for the
techniques of emotional manipulation theadvertisers are practicing.")