How to Motivate Students: Top 12 Ways

If there is one thing we know about kids, it’s that they have short attention spans and prefer now to later. This is especially true at the beginning of the year.

Teachers, more than any district or school wide programs, have the most power to know how to motivate students because they’re on the front lines. They can influence students in a way that kids can actually understand: here, now, today, in this room.

Here are 12 ways to motivate students:

1. Praise Students in Ways Big and Small

Recognize work in class, display good work in the classroom and send positive notes home to parents, hold weekly awards in your classroom, organize academic pep rallies to honor the honor roll, and even sponsor a Teacher Shoutout section in the student newspaper to acknowledge student’s hard work. 

2. Expect Excellence

Set high, yet realistic expectations. Make sure to voice those expectations. Set short terms goals and celebrate when they are achieved.

3. Spread Excitement Like a Virus

Show your enthusiasm in the subject and use appropriate, concrete and understandable examples to help students grasp it. For example, I love alliteration. Before I explain the concept to students, we “improv” subjects they’re interested in. After learning about alliteration, they brainstorm alliterative titles for their chosen subjects. 

4. How to Motivate Students: Mix It Up

It’s a classic concept and the basis for differentiated instruction, but it needs to be said: using a variety of teaching methods caters to all types of learners. By doing this in an orderly way, you can also maintain order in your classroom. In a generic example for daily instruction, journal for 10 minutes to open class; introduce the concept for 15 minutes; discuss/group work for 15 minutes; Q&A or guided work time to finish the class. This way, students know what to expect everyday and have less opportunity to act up.

5. Assign Classroom Jobs

With students, create a list of jobs for the week. Using the criteria of your choosing, let students earn the opportunity to pick their classroom jobs for the next week. These jobs can cater to their interests and skills.

Classroom Job Examples

• Post to the Class blog
• Update Calendar
• Moderate review games
• Pick start of class music
• Watch class pet
• Public relations officer (address people who visit class)
• Standard class jobs like Attendance, Cleaning the boards, putting up chairs, etc.

6. Hand Over Some Control

If students take ownership of what you do in class, then they have less room to complain (though we all know, it’ll never stop completely). Take an audit of your class, asking what they enjoy doing, what helps them learn, what they’re excited about after class. Multiple choice might be the best way to start if you predict a lot of “nothing” or “watch movies” answers.

After reviewing the answers, integrate their ideas into your lessons or guide a brainstorm session on how these ideas could translate into class. 

On a systematic level, let students choose from elective classes in a collegiate format. Again, they can tap into their passion and relate to their subject matter if they have a choice. 

7. Open-format Fridays

You can also translate this student empowerment into an incentive program. Students who attended class all week, completed all assignments and obeyed all classroom rules can vote on Friday’s activities (lecture, discussion, watching a video, class jeopardy, acting out a scene from a play or history).

8. Relating Lessons to Students’ Lives

Whether it is budgeting for family Christmas gifts, choosing short stories about your town, tying in the war of 1812 with Iraq, rapping about ions, or using Pop Culture Printables, students will care more if they identify themselves or their everyday lives in what they’re learning. 

9. Track Improvement

In those difficult classes, it can feel like a never-ending uphill battle, so try to remind students that they’ve come a long way. Set achievable, short-term goals, emphasis improvement, keep self-evaluation forms to fill out and compare throughout the year, or revisit mastered concepts that they once struggled with to refresh their confidence.

10. Reward Positive Behavior Outside the Classroom

Tie service opportunities, cultural experiences, extracurricular activities into the curriculum for extra credit or as alternative options on assignments. Have students doing Habitat for Humanity calculate the angle of the freshly cut board, count the nails in each stair and multiply the number of stairs to find the total number of nails; write an essay about their experience volunteering or their how they felt during basketball tryouts; or any other creative option they can come up with.

The idea of cash incentives is a timely yet controversial topic, so I’d like to look at this attempt to “buy achievement” through a different lens. It seems people are willing to dump some money into schools, so let’s come up with better ways to spend it.

11. Plan Dream Field Trips

With your students, brainstorm potential field trips tiered by budget. Cash incentive money can then be earned toward the field trips for good behavior, performance, etc. The can see their success in the classroom as they move up from the decent zoo field trip to the good state capitol day trip to the unbelievable week-long trip to New York City. Even though the reward is delayed, tracking progress will give students that immediate reward.

12. College Fund Accounts

College dreams motivate athletes; why not adapt the academic track to be just as tangible for hard-working student? One way is to keep a tally of both the cash value and the potential school choice each student has earned. As freshman, they see they’ve earned one semester at the local junior college. By second semester of junior year, they’re going to four-years at State for half the price. By graduation, watch out free ride to their dream school.

Writer: Annie Condron

Source: Teach Hub

5 Motivational Tips for Students

Students who are thrilled to do their homework every single day are rare… if there are any. Everyone needs a motivational push now and then, and you will be surprised what inspiration can do with your opinion about “pointless” homework assignments.

Even if you don’t see the point in doing homework, you still see a point in getting good grades, so read these tips and learn how to become a more motivated student.

1. Change your perspective

You cannot form a foundation for your future knowledge and skills without doing homework, no matter how pointless it seems. Even topics that don’t awaken a single spark of interest are important for your general knowledge and development as a person.

If you don’t like algebra, you may understand its importance when you realize that it’s the foundation for economics, business, science, and many other fields of study. When it comes to English homework, you need to understand that paper writing is an essential skill to gain if you want to be a successful student at college and university.

2. Become an “expert” in one area

There isn’t a student who absolutely loves all subjects. All you need to do is focus a bit more on the area you love and get some serious attitude about it. Maybe you can start a blog associated to the area you love and become a self-appointed expert in it. Research deeper, become more involved and enjoy your devotion to the things that interest you.

However, this shouldn’t drive you away from all other homework you get; in fact, it should help you become more tolerant of the topics that don’t interest you that much. Think of the less favored topics as “supporting bricks” for your career path.

3. Don’t be afraid of competition

You don’t have to tame your competitive spirit. In fact, it can help you be a more diligent student and have fun while doing homework and making better achievements than anyone else in class.

Being competitive doesn’t mean that you have to become the classmate no one likes. You can team up with one or two friends and inspire each other to do better in all subjects. Healthy competition can be a very inspiring motivation, if you know how to approach it.

4. A prize can be motivating

If a big science project is giving you trouble and you can’t even get motivated enough to start it, you should make a plan and divide the entire process into few smaller steps. Take each step and turn it into a goal, having the big picture in front of you at all times.

Make sure to set deadlines for each step and reward yourself with small treats or breaks after every achievement. When you focus on the prize, you will be motivated to do everything right.

5. Get support to get motivated

If you are not getting enough encouragement from your family or friends, that shouldn’t discourage you because it doesn’t mean that no one cares.

Your teacher, for example, surely cares whether or not you do your homework and study well. Teachers are always there to support their students, because their success as educators depends on the achievements of the class.

If you feel like you don’t get enough support in your home or from your friends, you can join an education forum and find the motivation you need. Many people will cheer for you if you are brave enough to cheer for yourself.

Conclusion: Motivation is crucial for your academic success

This is common for all students: they don’t see how the knowledge they gain in the classroom is implementable in the real world, so they see homework as a pointless task with a single aim to cause them stress, consume their free time and exercise their brain cells. If that’s your attitude towards homework, it is completely wrong!

All you need is a different perspective on your studies and you will understand how important they are. When you learn how to motivate yourself, the homework will immediately become important and meaningful in your eyes.
Writer: Robert Morris
Source: Lifehack

Advice From Teachers to Parents

Like many teachers, I have a good relationship with the parents of my students. I have been both a general education teacher (social studies and math) and a special education teacher, and found both ups and downs working with a variety of parents. I spoke to colleagues from across my teaching career and asked them what they would say to parents of their students, to provide perspective towards the workload that teachers have on their plate for 180 days of the year, plus professional development, planning, research and coordinating with fellow teachers on interdisciplinary curriculums. Our combined input has led to the following pieces of advice that hopefully sheds some light on this side of the teacher-parent relationship and encourages open communication for the benefit of students. After all, that’s why we’re here, right?

Mind you, these are not a list of gripes, or an unfiltered telling off of parents. Quite the contrary. Below you will find constructive thoughts that veteran teachers shared with me, as a way to improve the educational impact a child has throughout the course of their schooling. This is not, of course, teachers advising you on how to raise your child. We aren’t doing that. We are simply offering ways to improve your child’s education in the time they are both in and not in school, in a manner than benefits both the family and the student.

- Teach your children to be prepared; it’s not just for the Boy Scouts.

- Education that stops when the school day ends is an incomplete education. Kids who do not continue their school work and learning outside of school — including reading, reviewing the days work and talking with their parents about what they learned that day, leads to a lack of retention by the students and an under-appreciation for what was taught to them that given day.

- On that note, the earlier this reinforcement of a student’s education becomes part of a student’s life, there is a greater degree to which students will get used to talking about what they learned, engage in conversation and later, debate. This firmly entrenches what they learned — math, english, science, social studies and the arts — into their brains for longer learning retention.

- Think of a child’s day in this manner: a 24 hour day can be broken down like this — eight hours of school, including commute to and from, eight hours at home and eight hours of sleep, give or take an hour here and there. The eight hours at school and the eight hours at home need to be chock full of learning so that while sleeping, the thoughts are processed and organized and problems solved, making the students stronger learned in the long run.

While a short nap can help that, a good night’s sleep is important too. Video games, latchkey kids and parents who do not engage their children outside of school with educational reinforcement can harm their kids education and their future

- Keep your kids aware of current events and make it a point to watch the news together, so that students may tie things learned in school to current events and contemporary issues. TV isn’t always a bad thing; it is still an incredible learning tool when utilized properly.

- Ask your child each night “what did you learn in school?” and have a conversation about their education. Show them it is important to you.

- Have a problem with something a teacher taught, or a grade your child got on a test? Go direct to the teacher; we can work it out with you. If you don’t agree with us after talking, feel free to ask our supervisor, but don’t jump to the supervisor without talking to us first. We’re paid to communicate with parents and expect parents to reach out if they disagree with us.

- Make sure your child comes to school on time. Don’t drop your child off habitually late. They will learn that this is a proper habit for the future and guess who will show up late to a job in a few years?

- We can tell when a kid isn’t getting love, food or attention at home. Do your job as parents and we will do ours as teachers. Together, we will raise and teach your child to make this a better world.

- Don’t try to get kids out of detention or punishment. Allow your child to learn to accept consequences for their actions/inactions. On that note, don’t make excuses for your children. They’ll learn their parents will bail them out when needed, a habit that will follow them into high school and beyond.

- Implement a consistent homework routine that focuses on relearning what was taught that day, as well as staying up-to-date on longer projects. This will make students more effective employees down the road and keep them from working low wage jobs where these skills aren’t needed. Parents, you want your kids to be successful, right? Then that process starts when a child is enrolled in school.

- Don’t send your child to school when they are sick. They won’t gain anything while sick, they’ll just make other kids and teachers sick. This leads to a decrease in productivity and grades, cutting back on the learning for all. Keep sick kids home until they are symptom free.

- Please respond to our emails and phone calls. We know you are busy (we’re busy too!) but show us you are concerned for your child’s education as we are.

- Similarly, call and email us without us reaching out first. If you have a concern, talk to us! Just remember that most teachers have between 30-100 students and have a lot to juggle, just like you. We will make the effort if you do!

- Advocate for your kids, but if they get a bad grade because they didn’t do the work, don’t ask us to give them extra chances or to raise their grade. This isn’t how the real world works. You don’t do your work, you lose out. There’s a lesson to be learned here, not one to be bargained with.

- Advocate for teachers. We invest our time to educate your kids, so please invest some time to support teachers who make a difference. All we want is what everyone wants — better working standards, smaller classroom sizes, and better pay, all of which benefit students in the long run.

- When your child struggles with a subject, don’t balk because you don’t know the content or don’t find it interesting. This is particularly true with math, as many find this topic difficult compared to other subjects. If you find it difficult, children will learn to have struggles in these subjects, because their parents avoided helping them because they don’t understand it. Instead, push yourself to help them even when the material may be tough. Giving up is a learned trait, but so is perseverance.

- Talk positively about the gateways that education opens up, including college, careers and how much money one makes the more education they have. Avoid talking negatively about school, as it doesn’t help them to succeed.

- There are bad presidents, bad lawyers, bad chefs, bad engineers, bad CEOs and bad teachers. Don’t let the few bad reflect on the good ones. We’re not all perfect, but we are all striving for the same goal — a better world through education.

Writer: Pete Mason

Source: Huffpost Parents