Motovation
Having your students effectively apply concepts from the classroom in practical or personal settings is very extrinsically motivating. Having a student report back to you that your teaching actually helped facilitate the learning of some idea is very rewarding.
In the classroom I am intrinsically motivated by the desire to be my own best self, and to constantly improve; to have a deeper understanding of subject matter, and to deliver information more efficiently.
frank, what steps do you take when you discover your students do not have some of the skills you feel they need to be successful? Thanks for any information you can share.
James Jackson
First you need to make sure the student has the necessary skills to be successful such as good study habits, understand the basic skills associated with being information literate and review their learning patters for different forms of learning disorders.
Theodore, be careful not to over simplify your definition of motivation. Many inexperienced students may have a high degree of motivation but lack the knowledge or skills to perform. Get to know your students and what they experience in everyday life and you may develope a different definition of motivation.
James Jackson
I have been teaching day and evening classed now for about 6 years. I have found that experience is a good motivator. People who have worked for a little while have noticed that there is a relationship between education and pay. This extrinsic motivator, pay tends to make older students more motivated then younger ones. There are also younger students who are very motivated. Their reward is the feeling of accomplishment.
Anis, while this may be your experience at your location be careful to over generalize. I have seen many institutions where the evening students are the most motivated and also the most successful in graduation rates. Each location will be different.
James Jackson
Morning students are also more motivated than evening ones. I noticed that most of the morning students work at in the after noon shift, they are more responsable. The evening students have tendency to be just full time students.
I get more motivated when I see that I have movated another student to achieve their goal and be successful.
Melissa, how about a fashion award for the day or have students provide their fashion tips to each other as a part of a daily ice-breaker. Have a different student each day provide some fashion tips on "Dress for Success" and get all your students thinking about fashion daily versus approaching the topic as a negative aspect of what they have failed to accomplish. Let me know how this works for you.
James Jackson
I am an instructor at a cosmetology school. I always like to stress the importance of professionalism, especially for cosmetology students. Our industry is all about outer apearance. How can I better motivate my students to strive for professionalism(dressing professional, taking pride in apearance) without coming across as negative or "nagging"?
larry, students tend to be a reflection of their institution and their instructors so I agree 100% with your statement.
James Jackson
Motovation has to start with the Instructor in the classroom. If he is not motovated it would be hard to get the students motovated.Intrinsic students to me go automatically because they are self starters and extrinsic learners need that little reward at the end to accomplish a task.
James, could you elaborate more on this technique? Looks very interesting but would like to know more about your strategy on how you progress your students to higher and higher levels of understanding of the materials. Are you using any type of taxonomy such as blooms or some other form of learning rubric? Thanks for anything you can share.
James Jackson
I enjoy motivating the students by having them use recently completed project to work on and complete future projects. Each project is by design more difficult and by encouraging students to use all their resources including completed tools, certainly enhances the motivational process.
Kevin, be careful with how you define motivation. There are time that motivation can be difficult to monitor if other factors are involved such as learning disorders, lack of confidence, poor reading and reasoning skills among others. Take the time to build relationships and try to understand the root cause of the perceived lack of motivation.
James Jackson
Rickey, just like there are different learning styles, there are also different teaching styles. The most effective instructors will be knowledgable about ALL the above. The really outstanding instructors will know how to incorporate them in their lesson plans.
James Jackson
Robert, student feedback is a great source of learning and improving one's skills as an educator.
James Jackson
Frank, looks like you have things well in order. Keep up the great work and continue being an advocate for life long learning not only on subject matter but also the latest developments in teaching and learning.
James Jackson
In my opinion a student has to have a little bit of motivation inside and we can help bring it out and build it up, but if they are completely unmotivated it seems to be impossible.
After almost 8 years of teaching at an auto repair school I have found that students are motivated differently. If you can find this motovational "tool" the students will motovate themselves. When they reach this stage, teaching becomes easier and attendance seems to be better.
