Motivating Students
What would be the greatest way to motivate a students who is having trouble staying awake?
I would try to grab their attention, when you stimulate the minds of your students they will tend to stay awake. I really enjoy motivating them by quoting a motivational quote and let them watch a motivational video. However, I make sure I sort through one that is tailored more towards their type of audience. Asking them questions and pinpointing interesting topics can reiterate discussion.
Take care,
Q
Hi Gregory,
What kinds of group study projects do you use in your classes?
Gary
It is hard to motivate students in lecture, but I like the way you throw in other things. I have used the same methods. I will throw a group study project in the middle of the lecture, both to wake them up and to re-enforce what we have been talking about.
Dr. DeCuir
Yawning is often simply an autonomic response that the brain needs more oxygen. If you find students yawning (more than one) try an activity that gets them out of their chairs for 30 seconds to one minute.
You'll be surprised how that will reenergize your classroom.
(of course sometimes a student is simply sleepy).
Hi Crystal,
Good strategies for keeping the interest of the students. The change up in delivery and pace will help to keep them engaged as they get their brains going in the morning. Anything you can do to get the blood pumping in terms of group activities, games, team projects will help to make that happen.
Gary
It is often hard to motivate students during lectures. Morning classes...they just woke up or worked late and with evening classes...they worked all day and are tired. Teaching in the Veterinary Technology field offers me a wide variety of options becuase we have classes that incoproate a lot of lab. However, we do have classes that are strictly lecture. For these classes I try to change up my mode of instruction. I use powerpoint a lot as an outline to my instruction but will throw in instructional videos, group activities, short in class assignments, group discussions and use objects during class that relate to what I am teaching instead of just pictures in powerpoint. This allow the students the visual aspect of acknowledging what they are learning as well. Hope this helps.
Hi Nathaniel,
I teach an evening class and my students have gone to work or stayed at home all day with their children and very hard to motivate. What I usually do is give them some old assignments and some new assignments and make a game out of it by going around the room with each student, and when that student misses or messes up, I immediately call on another student. Of course they raise their hand when they have the information and want you to call on them, so they get involved, and a little comical when they don't want you to call on them. Everyone usually wakes up and wants to get involved and not miss or mess up. Sometimes it's even fun. But it gets them geared up. Hope this helps.
Hi Nathaniel-
I think motivating students that have trouble staying awake would be to have interactive lectures, possibly something tactile. It gets the students involved and they are more attentive.
I teach early in the morning as well and often have to deal with jump starting the students minds by sometimes changing my approach for the day perhaps do demo's and class production for the day first to get their blood moving and to give in to their main interest first then when they are awake 2 - 3 hours later then we will lecture. And when I lecture I stop and challenge them by having them answer questions while I am lecturing plus I use power point so that they have a visual at the same time.
Hi Arthur,
Good plan. Movement equals having both the body and mind engaged. With this comes the opportunity for learning and engagement.
Gary
My thoughts on motivating students that cannot stay awake are to always keeping them busy doing something. I try keeping atention spands by providing the students with continous objectives wich need to be conpleted.
Hi Michelle,
I like it. Something that gets the students refocused and refreshed and still lets you move the class forward is good. You are right about being amazed. I would have been to, wouldn't have thought of it.
Gary
Playing fast music - sounds funny right! I teach evening classes, around 8:30 everyone seems to be drifting off. I had one student bring to class some fast paced music, I wasn't sure if it was appropriate for everyone since it was not main stream. After about 5 minutes, everyone started moving around and producing all their thumbnails. It still amazes me when I think about it!
Hi Susana,
Good way to keep the students engaged and focused during a time when they would rather just doze off. You have your challenges by having a lecture course in a hands on setting. Sounds like you have a good fix on what you want to get accomplished with your students even if the hour is early.
Gary
I also teach early in the morning and have a lecture class in a heavily based hands on learning environment. I run into the issue of keeping students awake or waking them up almost on a daily basis. I frequently have a group discussion, ask them to share an experience or simply sit down with them to discuss a topic so that they feel more engaged.
Hi Whitney,
Thank you for the suggestions. These are all good methods of getting student involvement. It gets interaction and discussion started and that leads to a higher level of interest on the part of students.
Gary
Hi Steven,
You are fortunate that you have more activity based instruction that you are offering. This gets the students moving and they really need that to get awake and ready to learn.
Gary
Perhaps using interactive activities in the classroom would help to engage students who are tending to be disengaged or drifting off during a lecture or discussion. Posing questions that result in a list of answers would allow you to go around the room and elicit participation from more of the group, while not singling out one person, but engaging many. Perhaps even making it a game would work.
Hi Nathaniel,
I would put the students into teams and have some kind of game that I would have them play. The game would use the content that was just covered. Use mini-lectures and activities to change the flow of the class so the students are engaged in different ways throughout the entire class.
Gary
