Student Motivation

1. Student Motivation By Karlyn East and Taylor Briese

2. What is the potential effect on you as a teacher of students who lack motivation? • Two outcomes: • Preferable outcome is that you motivate the student and yourself. Using a combination of teaching and motivational skills, you help this student reach new heights. Meanwhile, you become more confident as an educator and become a better teacher because of your unmotivated students. This is what all teachers strive for and helping students improve is extremely beneficial. • Negative effect is if you cannot reach the student and also doubt yourself. Teaching is a beautiful thing because of interactions with students. When you feel you cannot motivate, it makes you question yourself. It also makes daily teaching much harder because you question how much of your teaching is working.

3. What fears do you think your students have? • I think that students have many fears regarding school, and being in the classroom. Many of these fears can and will effect their motivation toward school and a particular class. Some of the top fears are: • Afraid the teacher will be disrespectful, hateful, or mean towards them • Concerned that they are not intelligent enough to succeed • That a class will be too hard or too much work • They’ll be bullied by their classmates or picked on, which may be for socioeconomic or cultural reasons • Will hate a particular topic/subject in class • Fear being singled or called out

4. How will you mitigate these fears? • A teacher has to individualized instruction whenever possible. Such is true with student fears. You have to know your students, whether it be encouraging remarks on a quiz or an offer to redo an assignment, to help them combat their fears. Always try to know what is going for your students so that your classroom is a loving environment and not a place where their fears are exacerbated.

5. Why are student feedback mechanisms important? Describe the student feedback mechanisms you will build. • Student feedback mechanisms are vital because not all students will want to publically share information, or their opinion. A feedback mechanism allows them to express themselves freely and openly to the teacher which can make them less apprehensive and lets the teacher know what he/she needs to do to help the student out, or learn more about the individual. Some mechanisms that I think may be helpful are: • Suggestion jar: where students can drop in a jar how they’re feeling toward the class or a tip to the teacher on how they think the class could run better. It could also be a thing where the teacher asks the students a personal question or something about their interests and the students respond by dropping a note in the suggestion jar • Exit slip: these can be effective as before the end of class the students can answer a question about issues or anything the teacher wants, and as they leave they hand their answer to the teacher as they walk out the door. These could be anonymous or not, given the question • Student survey or polling: the teacher could publically, during class, ask the students to answer a question by raising their hands, similar to a poll. The teacher could also pass out a survey with certain questions they want to know about and get the students to fill it out

6. What specific actions will you perform to consistently motivate your students? Be specific. • Praise students and provide encouraging remarks albeit written or verbally • Push them beyond their limits but provide assistance to ensure success • Have strong professional relationships with students to build camaraderie and an open classroom environment • Be organized, professional and prepared • Diversify my lessons to ensure enthusiasm from all students

7. Explain why establishing good communication with the parents is crucial. • Having good communication with the parents of the students in your classroom is critical to all the parties involved as parents can inform the teacher of things or factors affecting the student, as well as their interests or tips on how to motivate them. Communication with parents is also important as the teacher needs to inform them of anything going on in the class, this may include: behavior, a high/low grade, or important upcoming events. Having the parents’ support can make the teachers’ job that much easier.

8. How will you communicate with their parents? • Frequent communication with parents is key. Your students parents are allowing you to be a role figure in their children lives and that demands respect. At the same time, when dealing with secondary students, parents cannot fight their children's battle. Students must be held accountable for their actions. • Ways I will communicate include • Emails • Phone Calls • Back Pack letters and notes • One on one meetings or class meetings

9. Describe your first lesson. Outline the sequence in as much detail as you can. It’s a 45 minute class. • For the first class of the year, the first thing I want to happen is to warmly, welcome the students back to school, and introduce myself, giving the students some background and information about me. The rest of the class would go as follows • Student introductions: students go around the room, introduce themselves, and give three highlights from their summer. This will allow the me to learn a little about them, and their interests. (15 minutes) • Next, I will go over how the course is going to work, what is expected out of the students, and some of the larger projects and assignments that we’ll do throughout the year. Next, I’ll explain to the students that their grade is completely determined by them but, I assure that if they display a positive attitude and solid work ethic, they’ll be successful. I’ll then poll the students to find out who are visual, auditory, or hands-on learners. This will show the students how diverse the class is, and I’ll explain to them that this class will cater to all of them as we’ll do interesting, different things everyday. (15 minutes) • To finish the class, the students will break into small groups, and come up with two things their apprehensive, nervous, concerned, or afraid of with regards to this class, or school year. As we meet back together, each group will share and I’ll try to answer each concern, the class can discuss each as well. (15 minutes) • Hopefully this first day, helps to lower the students’ anxiety levels, has them excited for the school year, and makes them feel comfortable in my class right off the bat

10. Why is mastery of your course content relevant to them beyond their formal schooling? • If students do not learn from history, they are bound to repeat it. Even if students cannot list all eastern theatre battlefields in the American Civil War, that is okay. But 10, 20 or 40 years after I teach them, if they can have an understanding of how the country they live in became the United States of America, then my job will have been accomplished.