Struggling teachers often experience difficulty when it comes to motivating students. It’s easy as well for one or two bad apples in a classroom to really throw off a teacher’s confidence and approach to classroom instruction. Maintaining control of a classroom and continuing to excite the students when they would rather be playing video games or hanging out with friends is not the easiest quest. However, there are essential strategies and ideas that you can implement in order to ensure that your students are engaged and ready to learn.
Motivating students starts first with appealing to them personally without losing control. The teacher must have a thick skin. Next, you have to realize that the information presented must be life applicable. Now this term means different things, as a teenager is not going to view what you present as life applicable in the way you are. So, you must present the material in a way in which you appeal to their interests while subtly helping them understand your point of view as to how the subject material is life applicable as well.
So how should the material be presented? Obviously, you’re going to be asking questions and engaging the students. You definitely don’t want to just lecture to them. When possible, use different styles of learning, and even incorporate tactile presentation methods and also projects to get your students active. Use modern technology to help the students be more engaged. Have them do research in the classroom on the topic. Reserve the computer lab for days of research and activities because students spend the majority of their time with electronic devices in their faces. Can you use music to help your students identify with the lesson? It’s not just about making them understand the material is applicable to their life. It’s also about finding ways to present this material for motivating students properly within your classroom.
The teacher often gets disheartened because they are just not sure as to the approach to take that will work. Overall, you must identify with your students and not get discouraged. Remember that you are the authority figure, and do not let what they do get to you. If you practice this approach, positive reinforcement and other strategies will much easier come into play for you when managing your classroom. Motivating students is not difficult if you have the right mindset and employ the right tactics.
