What can I do to ensure that students are motivated?
Unless you are a psychologist or plan to become one, you do not have time to explore the wealth of literature that exists in this domain. However, for effective teaching there are a few ideas that... Click for more
Unless you are a psychologist or plan to become one, you do not have time to explore the wealth of literature that exists in this domain. However, for effective teaching there are a few ideas that can help guide practice with some reliability. Authentic curiosity is a powerful motivator. Provoking this curiosity has more to do with how students are allowed/required to interact with the course material than with the material itself. We often see evaluations where students express surprise at how much they appreciated a topic they believed to be boring. From another perspective on motivation, some students will be hooked by a personal connection to the instructor or to the community of students in the course. These relationships can be fostered through the learning environment created by the instructor. For some instructors this can be done by creating a feeling of collegiality and openness in class, by allowing the students to see that you are a human being, like them. (Delicate issues of age, appearance, gender, and culture may have to be factored in to how this is done.) To create a motivating bond among students in larger classes, you may want to work with collaborative, cooperative, and team-based learning approaches. The links below will allow you to explore in a bit more depth these and other issues that will affect the level of student motivation in your classes. Click for less
