Improving student’s motivation and participation in academics is crucial if educators want to effectively prepare the next generation for responsibility and leadership. Getting students to feel the excitement of learning and growth is a heroic mission. The best educators live for such a transformative experience.
Understanding why students don’t have the inspiration to love and embrace academics is the first step to finding out how to inspire them. Several reasons outside of school could exist for lack of motivation, such as a divorce, a family addiction, abuse, and other oppression surroundings which diminishes the value of education.
Support, Appreciation, Patience
Therefore motivation and inspiring academic participation in students must begin by making the student feel safe and valuable. Educators and administrators must invest tons of support; appreciation and patience into making children feel good about themselves.
Once students recognize that the teachers, as well as the principal of a school, care about their livelihood outside of classes then the likelihood of openness to learning and participation will occur. As a teacher who has taught elementary, middle and high school, I have seen many transformations occur when students know that they are loved and valued.
Strategies and Tools for Motivation and Participation
Creative tools and strategies will go a long way in getting students excited about entering the classroom every morning. The best of these include delegating assignments, videos and games, skits and roleplays, field trips and outdoor adventures.
Delegating Assignments
Allowing students to take control and guide various assignments in the classroom can be a huge motivator, especially for hyperactive students. Such an approach can be used to teach students responsibility and leadership. Of course, teachers will remain to facilitate the process of the assignments, but giving students a degree of control will be a great experience for them.
I have observed the classroom in which students pretty much ran the entire classroom, many of which were extraordinarily successful. However, teachers must show patience with students until they understand the importance of taking responsibility and leading others.
Games and Videos
The faces of some of the most uninspired students light up when it comes to incorporating games and videos into the learning process. Games enable students to challenge one another on a variety of subjects, including math, English, Science, and technological topics.
Games allow students to get up out of their seats and prove their worth. Participation makes them feel good about being in school.
The incorporation of games should become a normal teaching strategy for motivating students in today’s modern classroom. The days of just seating in the seats and listening to the teacher in total silence are ineffective.
Most students love videos games. Classrooms which utilize chrome books and ipads have an advantage over those who use only books. Teachers can assign math, phonics, and reading topics via videos games.
Skits and Role Plays
Skits and role-plays create lots of positive energy in the classroom. The majority of unmotivated students cannot help but get involved. It is an escape from the boring and stagnates atmosphere of just sitting and listening to the lectures of teachers.
Incorporating the fun and excitement of skit and role-plays in the lessons planning is a sure way to inspire motivation, fun, and entertainment in a classroom. Dr. Howard Gardener’s theory of Multiple Intelligence will go a long way in aiding teachers with such knowledge and skills.
Over the course of my teaching career, I have used may Multiple Intelligent styles, especially in the elementary classroom. As a result, I experienced a high rate of improvement from many students who just couldn’t sit through common, verbal lesson deliveries. These popular learning styles include:
Visual-Spatial-the utilization of a variety of imagery and physical space in lesson planning
Bodily-Kinesthetic-the movement of the body in all manners, including dancing
Musical-using beautiful sounds and lyrics are universal ways of captivating attention and inspiring action
Interpersonal-one on one attention to students is an effective way to show them that they are more than a number
Intrapersonal-allows space to students who would rather focus independently and work creatively with special projects and materials
Linguistics-using and seeing words more effectively and creatively, subjects include storytelling, poetry writing, expression and the like.
Logical-Mathematical-math taught through logical games, story mysteries, computers, calculations and problem-solving challenges
Field Trips and Outdoor Adventures
Teaching students in the 21st century means having the courage to go beyond the ordinary and venture outside of the traditional way of accomplishing an assignment. Field trips and outdoor adventures should become the norm.
Students simply want to be outside. Classrooms are enclosures of captivity to many students who are unmotivated when it comes to academics.
Delivering lessons and completing assignments outside of the classroom will go a long way in persuading students that learning can be fun and exciting.
A Field Trip should be planned at least once a month and outdoor adventure should occur at least once a week. Incorporating special projects that can only be done outside of the classroom is a great way to get students to look forward to doing something special on a regular basis.
Special field trips to meet and interact with important professionals and community leader are a wonderful opportunity for middle and high school students.
Outdoor adventures to the zoo, science museums, marinas, forest trails and other exploratory places are ideal for all grades.
The goal is to teach as many lessons outside of the classroom as possible. The mistake is to feel out of place by comparing yourself to the majority of teachers who are less adventurous with their classroom.
However, your goal is to provide students the most optimal experience in the learning process.
Embracing Courage and Commitment
Improving the motivation and participation of students in the modern day classroom will take courage and commitment. Teachers who exhibit these qualities have an opportunity to change the way educational assignments are traditional approached.
Students are becoming restless with the same old seat-bound lesson deliveries. It is a new time and era that demand that educators start thinking more outside the four ways of the classroom. Experienced-based learning is the way to captivate the minds and hearts of students who may be living in an unpleasant home environment.
School may be the only place he or she looks forward to coming to each day. The job of the educator must make learning an unforgettable experience, not just one day or one week, but throughout the entire school year.
