Motivating children in the classroom is one of the more complicated and conflicting tasks that faces any teacher. What works for one child may not work for another, to start. Then some professionals say motivation needs to be intrinsic while others say extrinsic motivation is just fine. (Intrinsic motivation means students are motivated internally to learn while extrinsic motivation would be students working for a tangible reward for learning something) Here are nine ideas that teachers can attempt in their classroom, hopefully when one doesn’t work, another will!
1. Stay positive and focused on learning. Avoid yelling or threatening students and instead focus on achievement and creating mutual respect among students.
2. Provide many opportunities for success each day. Students who struggle need this in particular. Find way for them to succeed even in small ways in order to motivate them to pursue larger successes. At the same time, it is important to not lower your expectations for students. One idea to provide opportunities for small successes and can help motivate students is to add several simple questions to worksheets.
3. Find ways to be excited about every lesson you teach. This means finding creative ways to teach even the most boring lessons.
4. Provide individual and whole class rewards. This can work particularly well when focusing on appropriate behavior.
5. Plan activities for students to complete while working together in groups.
6. Provide public praise for students frequently. While many students may act embarrassed or shy about the praise, in my experience working with all ages, even teenagers secretly enjoy the praise.
7. Only praise appropriately. Be selective and provide praise when praise is due but do not provide praise for no reason. This will cause students to seek the praise, causing motivation to work harder.
8. Teach students how to problem-solve. This will naturally lead to lessons and activities that allow students to investigate, test, make mistakes and in the process, become more interested in what they are learning.
9. Dr. Gardner theorized back in 1983 that individuals can have one of many different “intelligences”. Utilize these multiple intelligences to provide methods for students to succeed in a broader way.
Finding ways to motivate students will take trial and error and teachers will often fail many times before finding success. Stay the course, though, and be creative in the search for what motivates a particular group or individual. The reward is well worth it.
