James Marshall Crotty once wrote that “Students who are bored or inattentive or who put little effort to schoolwork are unlikely to benefit from better standards, curriculum, and instruction unless schools, teachers, and parents take steps to address their lack of motivation.”
Meanwhile, up to 40% of students lack the motivation to do well at school. And since their level of motivation directly impacts their success, teachers have to find good ways to increase their motivation and stimulate hard work. Many educators are struggling with finding the best ways to boost students’ motivation inside the classroom seeing that conventional methods simply do not work.
To help them out, we have conducted a thorough research and found these eight ways that will help teachers successfully motivate students to do well in the classroom. So, if you are among those educators desperately looking for effective ways to stimulate students’ interest, this article is exactly what you need. Read on and apply our tips right away!
Eight Tips to Effectively Motivate Students inside the Classroom
1. Make it exciting.
If you are not thrilled or excited about what you are teaching to the class, there is no way your students will be. It is your task as a teacher to spread excitement and make sure that you make this excitement really contagious. But do not try to fake it, as kids can sense it very well. But rather teach the material you feel thrilled about passing on.
Of course, there will be dull topics you will have to dive into, but as long as you spice it all up with interesting challenges and engaging tasks, you are good to go!
2. Create different roles and responsibilities.
As soon as students get bored, they will lose motivation to study and deepen their knowledge. Therefore, you need to come up with new fresh ideas on how to make studying inside the classroom interesting. For instance, you can start a class blog and assign one student per lesson whose responsibility will be to write a short summary of the lesson for all to see it.
You can come up with as many tasks as you wish. Thus, you can get a pet and ask students to take care of it in turns, let them pick background music for short breaks, moderate games you play, or be in charge of old classics like keeping an Absence chart, writing home tasks down on a whiteboard or helping with the classroom cleaning.
Being responsible for at least some part of the classroom activities will motivate students to do better at school.
3. Track their progress.
It is vital for young people to see how they grow even when it seems like they are stuck and cannot understand some concepts. For this, get an individual progress chart for each student where you will mark what topics they have mastered, what grades they have earned, and how fast they have conquered some subjects.
They can keep track of the progress themselves under your supervision. But you will have to create your own grading system to be able to implement this technique.
4. Recognize their hard work.
Students want to see that their hard work is appreciated and that you notice how they are doing their best to achieve the high standards you set.
Therefore, be generous with the praise. You can hold awards every now and then to pay special attention to those who are doing their best trying to keep up with the rest, helping fellow students, or being proactive when it comes to the classroom activities.
Being praised for the achievements is what students love. That is why in such a simple way you will get a chance to seriously boost their motivation.
5. Use different materials.
Sometimes, lack of motivation roots in the dullness of the good old materials the educators offer their students.
No matter how good they seem to be from the educator’s point of view, they might be way too distant from the lives of students and thus, irrelevant. And after several attempts to adjust that knowledge to their daily realities, students just switch off.
So, not to lose them, try using different materials, both visual and audio. Bring something fresh, new, and relevant to your audience – and they will get back into the class. Do not let one curriculum failure turn your whole class off.
6. Have a rewards system.
Some professionals suggest offering students a chance to choose their rewards for hard work and active engagement in the classroom as a way to motivate them. Thus, they can plan their dream field trip or choose a type of activity they will have during their next class.
Feeling that they have a choice to do what they love as a “Thank you” for trying really hard at school will encourage them to try a little harder.
7. Set clear goals.
Having no understanding of what goals are set and what exactly is expected of them, young people lose interest in the educational process and simply try to get through the school years.
But setting realistic goals can help them move towards them. Of course, you will expect nothing but excellence from your dear students. But leave room for mistakes and give them the freedom to achieve set goals in their own unique ways.
8. Encourage competition.
Students are still at that age when competition can make all the difference. The desire to be the best, to get an award and recognition is still quite important to them. So, encourage the spirit of friendly competition inside the classroom – and you will see how peer pressure can be a good thing that motivates young people to do better at school.
However, keep your finger on the pulse and do not let the competition become a reason why students fight or hate each other.
Motivation in the classroom is crucial. Nobody doubts that. And the good news is that there are at least eight effective ways to gain back students’ motivation in your classroom.
If you know more than just these eight ways, do not hesitate to share them with us in the comments. We would love to hear from our experienced readers!
BIO: Lori Wade is a content writer who is interested in a wide range of spheres from education and online marketing to entrepreneurship. She is also an aspiring tutor striving to bring education to another level like we all do. If you are interested in writing, you can find her on Twitter or Google+ or find her on other social media. Read and take over Lori’s useful insights!
