Dealing with nonmotivated students
Students that are not motivated are hard to get to interact with the class however I do try to make them my helper.
I have two tools I use to deal with non motivated students:
(1) I use examples from the real world that pertain to their major- hiring trends, news stories, etc- and ask the students for their input or opinion.
(2) technology- using websites like engrade and polleverywhere (both free by the way) I am able to turn the non motivated students cell phone into a way to participate with the rest of the class, or they can post to a forum on a relevant topic to their careers.
Hi David,
You may want to get your Career Placement Coordinator involved. Sometimes students need to hear from a different professional other than the instructor.
Patricia Scales
Most of my "non-motivated students" are the ones who aren't sure if this progarm is the correct one for them.
I always do an "entry survey" with my new students to see what else thay have done academically to prepare for my Program, and to have THEM tell ME what they want to do in 5/10/20 years
I think that because 95% of my students are young, fairly immature, and have their education paid for by either a Federal Loan, or GI Bill, they don't really have an idea of how important focusing on a long-term career can be, to be held responsible for paying ack the costs they incur.
Any thoughts on how to motivate a career dilitant?
Hi Sharon,
I understand the challenge, but it is extremely helpful to meet individually with every student for about 5-7 minutes.
Patricia Scales
I agree. It is a hard balance to try to engage the unmotivated student while not sending the message that you have favorites. I think the easiest way to spread the love is to have a meeting with every student. This is easy when I was a teacher and I had 25 students. It is more challenging now that I am a program director and have 100 students.
I always encourage having the less involved students work on special assignments to engage them better in the class. I always like to focus additional energy on these students because they are the most likely to drift. The only thing I have to be careful to avoid is favoritism. Sometimes, when giving one student a lot of extra attention, the other students can feel jealous.
