Motivating Students

1
Motivating Students

• Susan Yager
• Associate Director, CELT
• August 16, 2005

2
Motivation is a tricky thing

• but I know it when I see it

3
What is motivation?

• A reason or incentive
• A feeling of interest or enthusiasm
• Forces that activate and direct behavior
• Biological
• Emotional
• Cognitive
• Social

4
Where does it come from?

• Motivation can be intrinsic
• When a child is self-motivated, the teacher
  cannot keep him from learning. - C.
  John Sommerville
• or extrinsic
• If you must have motivation, think of your
  paycheck on Friday.
  - Noel Coward

5
Intrinsic motivators are strong

• Readiness to act, perform, or learn
• Curiosity, desire for new experiences
• Exposure to and comfort with complexity
• Feelings of competence

and they last longer
6
Extrinsic motivators include

• Environmental factors
• Desire to gain skills or abilities
• Need to qualify for other courses or internships
• Incentives privileges, approval, praise
• (but
• excessive praise can decrease motivation).

7
A hard lesson

• not everyone is motivated

8
Who is and isn't motivated?

• Students who are tend to see the use, or
  intrinsic worth, of what they are studying tend
  to be confident and persistent and tend to want
  to achieve.

• Students who are not tend to resist new
  information may make "snap" judgments and may
  be reluctant to revise their thinking (Cashin,
  1979).

9
How can we maintain or increase motivation?

• Establish a caring and respectful, but
  businesslike, classroom atmosphere.
• Be organized at every level - class, unit,
  course. Examples ground rules for classroom
  behavior return work quickly and with useful
  feedback maintain office hours.
• Demonstrate your interest in and respect for your
  students. Share your enthusiasm for the subject.

10
How else?

• Make the class optimally challenging, but not out
  of reach (tough but not impossible). Help
  students set realistic, achievable goals.
• Focus on increasing intrinsic motivation, but
  create consequences for work that's not done.
• Try to prevent student passivity - this can limit
  or hamper motivation!

11
How else?

• Provide consistent and timely feedback. It
  doesn't have to be graded.
• Offer negative feedback as a "sandwich." Bread
  positive, second-person comments ("You clearly
  understand the principle"). Filling negative,
  third-person comments ("The report isn't
  clear"). More
  Bread positive and second-person ("Once you
  apply what you've learned here, you will be able
  to").

12
How else?

• Vary teaching activities - role-playing,
  problem-solving, any kind of student interaction.
  
• Use different methods of presentation and
  multiple examples. If possible, offer multiple
  ways of fulfilling an assignment.
• Students may be more motivated in a problem-based
  learning course than a traditional, lecture-based
  course, perhaps because they feel a higher degree
  of self-efficacy.

13
How else?
14
Resources

• General Principles of Motivation
  http//honolulu.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/Fac
  DevCom/guidebk/teachtip/motivate.htm
• Cashin, W. E. "Motivating Students." Idea Paper,
  no. 1. Manhattan Center for Faculty Evaluation
  and Development in Higher Education, Kansas State
  University, 1979.
• McKeachie, W. J. Teaching Tips. (10th ed.)
  Lexington, Mass. Heath, 1999.
• "Motivating Students." Teaching Tips Resources.
  http//honolulu.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/Fac
  DevCom/guidebk/teachtip/teachtip.htm