How to Motivate Students to Learn

Strange as it may seem many school children and students are surprisingly keen about learning. Sadly however, too many learners need or expect their tutors to encourage, challenge, and arouse them. In today’s environment where students are faced with many distracters effective learning in the classroom definitely depends on the educator's ability to preserve the keenness that brought learners to the course in the first place. Whatever level of motivation your students bring to the classroom, it will be altered either negatively or positively, by what happens in that classroom.

Disappointingly, there is not a recipe for motivating students. Many factors affect a given student's motivation to try hard and to study. These include interest in the topic/subject, knowledge of its usefulness, a general wish to achieve something, and of course self-confidence and self-esteem, as well as staying power and resolve. Of course, not all students are motivated by the same principles, needs, wishes, or wants. Some students will be motivated by the endorsement of others, some by winning all the challenges they might face.

Researchers have discovered that to encourage students to become self-motivated self-sufficient learners, teachers can do the following:

• Give positive feedback that supports students' ‘do well beliefs’.

• Make sure there are opportunities for students' success by giving tasks that stretch them a little.

• Help students find personal meaning and worth in the material.

• Generate an atmosphere that is open and positive.

• Help students feel that they are a valued part of a learning community.

Research has also shown that good teaching practices can do more to offset student indifference than extraordinary efforts to attack motivation directly. Most students react positively to a well-organized lesson taught by an animated teacher who has an authentic interest in students and what they learn. Thus activities you carry out to encourage learning will also augment students' motivation.

Students learn best when motivations for learning in a classroom gratify their own motives for signing up for the course. Some of the desires your students may bring to the classroom are the need to learn something in order to finish a particular task or activity, the need to seek new experiences, the need to hone skills, the need to overcome challenges, the need to become accomplished, the need to achieve something and do well, the need to feel involved and to network with other people. Satisfying such needs is rewarding to both the educator and the learner and rewards such as these maintain learning more effectively than do grades. Create projects, in-class tasks, and debate questions to address these kinds of needs.

Students learn by doing, making, writing, designing, creating, solving. Rote work dampens students' motivation and interest. Pose questions. Don't tell students something when you can make them feel good by asking them. Encourage students to propose new approaches to a problem or to conjecture the results of an experiment. Use small group work. Researchers asked students to evaluate what makes their classes more or less "motivating." They asked classes to bring to mind two current class periods, one in which they were highly motivated and one in which their motivation was low. Each student made an inventory of specific facets of the two classes that influenced his or her level of enthusiasm, and learners then met in small groups to reach an accord on features that contribute to high and low motivation. In over thirty courses, researchers reported, the same eight features emerged as major contributors to student motivation:

• Instructor's zeal

• Relevance of the material

• Organization of the course

• Suitable difficulty level of the material

• Active participation of students

• Diversity

• Empathy between teacher and students

• Use of appropriate, tangible, and understandable examples

Research has shown that a teacher's expectations have a dominant effect on a student's performance. If you act as though you expect your students to be motivated, industrious, and engrossed in the course, they are more likely to be so. Set pragmatic expectations for students when you make assignments, give presentations, carry out discussions, and grade examinations. "Pragmatic" in this context means that your standards are high enough to stimulate students to do their best work but not so high that students will be frustrated in trying to meet those expectations. To develop the force to achieve, students need to believe that achievement is possible which means that you need to make available open doorways to success.

Help students set achievable goals for themselves. To attain unrealistic goals can let down and frustrate students. Encourage students to focus on their continued improvement, not just on their grade on any one particular test or task. Help students evaluate their progress by encouraging them to assess critically their own work, analyse their strengths, and work on their weaknesses. Consider asking students to complete self-evaluation forms with one or two projects and submit them. Tell students what they need to do to be successful in your course. Don't let your students struggle to decipher what is expected of them. Reassure students that they can do well in your course, and tell them exactly what they must do to do well. Always offer your help. Make the learner feel that you are there to support them. Don’t be over critical, temper with a friendly touch. ‘How can I help you?’ is always a nice thing to hear.

Reinforce students' self-motivation. Don't use messages that emphasize your power as an instructor or that emphasizes extrinsic rewards. Instead of saying, "you must," offer " I will be interested in your reaction." Avoid creating extreme rivalry among students. Competition creates anxiety, which can hinder learning. Reduce students' propensity to compare themselves to one another. Researchers report that students are more attentive, show better understanding, produce more work, and are more sympathetic to the teaching process when they work cooperatively in groups rather than compete as individuals. Cease criticisms in public of students' performance and from remarks or activities that pit students against each other.

Try and be enthusiastic about your topic. An instructor's enthusiasm is a critical factor in student motivation. If you become uninterested or indifferent, students will too. Typically, an instructor's keenness comes from self-assurance, enthusiasm about the content and authentic pleasure in teaching. If you find yourself uninterested in the material, think back to what drew you to the field and bring those facets of the subject matter to life for your students. Or challenge yourself to create the most exciting way to present the material, however tedious the material itself may seem to you.