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How to motivate students
This has long been a topic in education and a challenge for teachers. I have heard a very inspiring talk on Friday. Much appreciated if you can share your findings or suggestions or attempts in handling this issue.
Teaching for the 21st century competencies? Yes, couldn't agree more that "teachers matter more to students' achievement than any other factor inside schools". This is why teaching is a meaningful job, which I've chosen as my life career. I can’t say that I understand very well how human beings learn and what the world will be like in future. When I teach, very often, or every time, I ask myself if I were one of the students, what and how I would want to be taught and what skills I need everyday when getting jobs done. Then that’s everything in my curriculum and my interaction with the students. I teach both junior and senior form students, for the junior form ones, I teach them the “what” and ask them to show me “how” while for senior form students, I review the “what”, ask for “how” and give opportunities for “why”. The talk was not just theoretical, I must say, the skills and approaches suit the style of the students of our school. I say this because in my three-year experience here, I have been lucky enough to have encountered a lot of good students in our school and their have great potential, though weak in “competencies”. However, we can’t define “weak” as bad, therefore, it’s a need to think of feasible ways to help them develop their potential and make them useful people here and outside. For here, I’d say “establishing purposeful learning communities” is feasible. If the buddy scheme is an example of success, and SA is another, and Prefect is one more, then there is a possibility for the success of learning communities. If they are useful here, they’ll finally be useful to the society. What I concern is when we should start. Do we start now? I don’t think so. There’s no shortcut to learning or success, it takes time and needs good plan. So I suggest we start next year. How to motivate our students? Make them teach, make them organize and make them direct and provide deep learning to them. However, is this a dream only if we have too much to handle? It’s necessary that we must be selective rather than trying to cover a wide area with limited recourses.
ReplyDeleteSociety is changing and what today needs more should be critical thinking and positive attitude to life. I do not purposely distinguish and classify the learning components as 'what', 'how' and 'why'. I just think what students should learn is how to be a good person. All those academic subjects are for their self discovery and exploration of interest and potential. What matters more importantly is they learn to think and build up a good character during the process of learning no matter at school or work.
ReplyDeleteTo implement a student-led learning community with the notion of 'learn to teach, teach to learn' is surely a fantastic idea. Students can learn to take up a big responsibility and experience the hardship of designing curriculum and teaching, and also have a more comprehensive and organized understanding of what they have supposedly learnt in each school level, as well as self reflect on their own learning attitude. However, this big programme does need a very supportive environment. When both teachers and students can release themselves flexibly from a wide range of works at the same time and continuously engage themselves in the planning and execution of this brand new programme throughout a year which does take time, such a self regulated learning is not a too ideal to absolutely impossible thing. In short, without sufficient resources, there is no room for teachers to be life mentors and students be self learners with critical thinking and good character.
To me, doing the what how why is a everyday job. We should just design our lessons in this way to facilitate students in learning. So i wouldnt take that as something extra. Forming learning communities is similar to study groups. we just nee to give more inputs. In that case, it is just a matter of design, not anything extra. what do the others think?
ReplyDeleteMotivate students to learn is one of the key to success. Why do I say so? Nowadays, there are too many temptations in the society, like Facebook, msn, discussion forums etc. Students like to engage in these activities after school instead of doing homework or do their revisions. As educators, what should we do to grasps their attention back to study?
ReplyDeleteOf course, teaching subject knowledge is an important responsibility of teacher. However, before that, we should teach them the skills and values required for successful learning. What are those skills and values?
1. Build up their confidence in learning through simple quizzes which assess their concepts and vocabularies.
2. Manage their own learning materials and handouts (uniform tests, quizzes, teaching notes, assignments etc) given by teachers in an orderly way. For me, I usually ask my students to keep all materials of each topic in a ring-binder file and check their files from time to time. In this way, they can refer back to their own work when they do their own revision.
3. Divide students into groups and hold regular Q&A sessions in normal lessons. Award students with little gifts if they had given correct answers. Questions asked should not be too difficult so that concepts can be testified.
Why not engage the students with the tools they like? Make them use forum or online discussion or even face book in learning!
ReplyDeleteThis is from Mr Dik wai yin,
ReplyDeleteI absolutely agree with Prof Ko' ideas. There is a need to shift the thinking of our students so that they become intrinsicly motivated to learn, rather than be animated to learn entirely by the carrots and sticks of testing.
To me, I may think that in the 21st Century, students should possess the following competencies” include:
a. Creativity and Innovation
b. Critical thinking and problem solving
c. adaptability and capacity for lifelong learning
d. Teamwork and collaboration in virtual teams
e. Initiative and self direction
f. Effective communication both in oral and written
g. Multiple languages and cultural awareness
h. Effectively accessing and analyzing information
i. Digital competence
Unfortunately, there is no single magical formula for motivating students. Many factors affect a given student's motivation to work and to learn. And, of course, not all students are motivated by the same values, needs, or wants.
To encourage students to become self-motivated independent learners, I suggest that we can do the following:
Give frequent, early, positive feedback that supports students' beliefs that they can do well.
Ensure opportunities for students' success by assigning tasks that are neither too easy nor too difficult.
Help students find personal meaning and value in the material.
Create an atmosphere that is open and positive.
In conclusion, I may say that everyday good teaching practices can do more to counter student apathy than special efforts to attack motivation directly. Most students respond positively to a well-organized lesson / programme taught by an enthusiastic teacher who has a genuine interest in students and care what they learn and what they think. '
As the talk was given in Cantonese, I did not attend the talk. Consequently, I cannot really respond to what may have been said.
ReplyDeleteMy general feeling on the motivation of pupils in HK to learn is that for most children it is squeezed out of them by the sheer volume of homework, extra classes and pressure placed on them starting, often, in kindergarten. The pressure comes from schools, parents, peers and hence the children themselves.
Speaking of pressure, why is it compulsory to respond? I was requested to post my response "ASAP". The 'motto' is "Be happy!" - if the feeling of being forced to respond makes me unhappy surely this is a contradiction.
I think students lack motivation in learning because they are being spoon-fed whether in school or at home. They are oblivious to what is happening around them and live inside their own world. All this time, this is the way they were brought up and now you ask for change. Fear of change is one of the factors that hold them back. As teachers, we need to open doors and encourage them to take the step. The first steps may be difficult for them so positive feedback is very important. Instead of saying that what they are doing is "incorrect" or "not good enough" we should give them a pat on the back for trying and give them more direction.
ReplyDeleteIt is very important to help the students learn not just the conceptual knowlege but also the "process".
When I teach my class, I try to teach them how to think. I throw out ideas to help guide them into coming up with a feasible answer. I use the word feasible because there is no "right" answer. As long as they can support what they say with reason (and realistic), it's feasible.
Another thing that I see which gets them motivated is to bring the teaching out of books and into real life. Give them scenarios in which they need to apply the concepts they learned in books. From our projects, I can see that our students have creative ideas. Eventhough some are bizarre and unrealistic, it's okay. As long as they're willing to take the first step. We can provide them with further guidance and smooth the rough edges as we go. It's all part of the learning process.
In this day and age, many teachers complain that teaching as a profession is very tough as students have become very disruptive in the classroom, and many of them are unmotivated. How to maintain a healthy environment in the classroom and get the students to work is always something difficult.
ReplyDeleteI think it is very important for the teachers to adopt new teaching strategies to draw the students' attention so that they will not be distracted. This year, the school has introduced a storytelling programme for junior forms. It is a good way to foster students' motivation in learning English because they can, while learning intonation and pronunciation, get a lot of fun from it. An activity approach is always conducive to students learning because they can take part in the learning process, and the class will also become more lively.
Let’s be more innovative to make classroom teaching and learning more active.
Motivation is important. Students must know why they need to learn and what they get by the end of their learning process. Students are demotivated because they may not have successful learning experience in the past and they can be distracted easily.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with Mr. Dik that there isn't one single formula for all students and teachers and it is important to find way to encourage and reward students' positive behavoir. Although it may not be the ultimate value, intrinsic motivation, that we would like to promote, but I think it is something we need to start with.
It seems fun to use facebook.However, I have some reservations about using it in classroom. I don't know whether the idea of facebook would work with some students in our school. They like using facebook because they can get to see their friends' stuff. When we ask them to do school work with it, it would be very difficult. It may be a problem with classroom management and the assessment method. To be frank, I myself would love to see my friends' stuff even if I am attending a stuff meeting. Anyway, it would be a good platform for students to discuss at home. However, if we make it complusory, where the fun is?
I agree with Mr. Crawford. Forcing the students to do something is the last thing to help students with motivation, and is totally contradictory.
ReplyDeleteI believe that motivation comes from having a choice. We need to offer students more choice rather than forcing them to conform. Conformity will only strangle the students' creativitiy and make them even more rebellious.
I think it is necessary to do watever we can to motivate the students. However,in order to do so, the teachers will also need to have the passion and enthusiasm to facilitate the learning.
ReplyDeleteSometimes I feel bored becuase of the limitation in our school and our school facility. For example, I want to explore the use of newsmaker and ipad in the classroom. It is extremely difficult to even book a computer room for the lesson. The time that I was able to use newsmaker with my class, everyone was very interested and on task. They even asked to go back to finish the work. But due to technical difficulty and room booking, it's nearly impossible.
Whereas the talk of using ipad inside the classroom has been going on for ages and only recently I've been given one to use. But when can i use it with my students? Waiting any longer and my enthusiasm will die down. Then where can I have the motivation to motivate my students?
From SKK:
ReplyDeleteIn order to motivate students' motivation, I think letting them know the reason they have to learn would be a good way.
Do our students know what they are learning when they are having the learning activities? Or what's left fot them after is just laughter and joy.
Do we explain to our students why they have to do reflection after each activities? to record the activites they had? to foster what they have learned?
I think in our learning activities, we have to make sure our students understand what they are doing rather than merely having the activities and collecting the reflection.
:: )
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ReplyDeleteHow to motivate students is actually quite a difficult topic. In order to motivate them, helping students build up their confidence is quite important. I agree with Vanessa that we can build up students' confidence in learning through quizzes. In addition, I believe giving them tasks can also provide students with chances to gain a sense of success.
ReplyDeleteAs observed, students nowadays are lack of self-management skills. I mainly teach junior forms. Students don't usually keep their handouts neatly. As a teacher, what I can do is only to try my best to remind them putting all the materials in a file, and from time to time, I collect all the files and check them. Moreover, students don't get used to jotting notes down during lessons. Teachers might need to encourage them more to write down important points during class.
It's from Angela:
ReplyDeleteThe talk helped reconfirm our belief that the ‘deep approach ’is what we teachers should adopt at this time and moment at school. I think everyone acknowledges the fact that we are living in a world which is fast paced, rapidly changing and media saturated. To put it simply, teachers need to equip students for tasks and jobs which may not even exist now. According to Professor Ko, in ‘a framework for success, motivation leads to learning and performance’ , but how can we motivate students ? I think one way is that students should be the source of activities- they need to know what they want to know, how to go about learning and finally, evaluate whether they have achieved what they have set out to learn. I can’t agree with Professor Ko more that if students are asked to teach, they will benefit the most since they need to go through all the above processes. In our secondary school setting, students would benefit if they are given the chance to organise and implement activities within and without the classroom. Instead of us acting only as transmitters of knowledge, we need to guide students to learn how to learn and stay interested in what they are learning.
I would like to expound on SKK’s comment on reflection. The original purpose of having reflection is to stimulate students’ thoughts on some FRESH and EXCITING events associated with a new learning experience, and that can be done informally as class discussion, not necessarily been written ones. If writing reflection is a once-in-awhile thing, I do not see a problem there if students find it valuable. However, reflections which require written format are given very frequently, they will drive both the teachers and the students crazy. This requirement adds extra burdens on our shoulders as we have to keep nagging them to hand in those add-on assignments.
ReplyDeleteAfter hearing the discussion of motivation and the reflections commented by others, I have to say that motivation comes naturally when students see values in doing it. To tell the truth, my students find reflections as tedious work and even myself feel annoyed and even stressful when I have to collect, mark, and comment on each and every reflection I collect, not to mention motivation. I dislike the idea of asking students to write competition essays 3 weeks after the experiential learning week. When most of the feelings have already been forgotten, how can we expect students to hand in a deep reflection if what they feel of it is just a piece of homework or something that contains no value? Well, they may fill in the words for you, but is what they have written truly reflect what they feel inside? If what we are doing is risking our students’ motivation to learn, maybe we shouldn’t be taking such a risk in the first place.