ENHANCING STUDENTS’

MOTIVATION TO LEARN

By: Nicole Oldham

• Effectively planned, well-paced, relevant, and interesting
instruction is a key aspect of effective classroom management.

• For schools to be positive, supportive communities in which

students feel respected and valued, instructional methods and
content must meet students’ academic needs.

• Students’ unproductive behavior and failure can often be traced to

failure to create an educational environment conducive to learning.

• Students vary in the type of classroom structure and instruction

that best facilitate their learning.

• Understanding the instructional needs of an individual student or

group of students provides teachers with information essential for
creating a positive learning environment.
KEY ISSUES IN STUDENT MOTIVATION
TO LEARN

The extent to which people become actively and

productively involved in an activity is based on:

1. Whether they believe they can be successful at

the task
2. The degree to which they value the rewards
associated with successful task completion
3. Climate or the quality of relationships within the
task setting during the time the people are
engaged in a task
 Educators should work towards a model of culturally
responsive teaching based on theories of intrinsic
motivation that includes the following conditions:

1. Establishing Inclusion – creating a learning atmosphere in

which students and teachers feel respected by and connected
to one another
2. Developing Attitude – creating a favorable disposition
toward the learning experience through personal relevance
and choice
3. Enhancing Meaning – creating challenging, thoughtful
learning experiences that include student perspectives and
values
4. Engendering Competence – creating an understanding that
students are effective in learning something they value
 STUDENTS' ACADEMIC NEEDS
 Teachercharacteristics and instructional methods are associated
with high achievement for students from diverse cultural
backgrounds. These teacher behaviors include:

1. Focusing instruction to some degree on what has meaning to students

2. Using a thematic approach to instruction
3. Incorporating active learning
4. Implementing cooperative/collaborative leaning activities
5. Communicating high teacher expectations for achievement of all
students
6. Developing warm, caring relationships with students that often extend
beyond the school day
7. Integrating aspects of all students’ cultures into instructional activities
8. Creating opportunities for cross-age tutoring
9. Incorporating specific instructional techniques for students with
limited English proficiency
 ACADEMIC NEED 1:
UNDERSTANDING THE LEARNING GOALS

 Teachers can quite rapidly learn to give students

specific explanations concerning the purpose of
instructional activities during their lesson by
including information on:
Objective(s)
Reason(s)
Activity(ies)
Assessment
 ACADEMIC NEED 2:
UNDERSTANDING THE LEARNING PROCESS

 Develop a Functional Definition of Learning

One technique for redefining learning
involves beginning the school year by having
students describe what an effective learner
“looks like” and “sounds like.”
 ACADEMIC NEED 3:
BE ACTIVELY INVOLVED IN THE
LEARNING PROCESS

 Student motivation and achievement

will be enhanced by actively
involving students in the learning
process.
 ACADEMIC NEED 4:
HAVE LEARNING GOALS RELATED TO
THEIR OWN INTERESTS AND CHOICES
 How Teachers Make Work Interesting
for Students
1. Hands-on activities
2. Group work
3. Personalizing the content by connecting it
to students’ life experiences and interests
4. Involving students in sharing their ideas,
planning and making choices
 ACADEMIC NEED 5:
RECEIVE INSTRUCTION RESPONSIVE TO
THEIR LEARNING STYLES AND STRENGTHS
 Teachers can increase students’ motivation and
success by responding effectively to students’
learning styles.

 Teachers who use the same instructional methods

with every student or who use a limited range of
instructional activities will create a situation in
which some students become frustrated,
experience failure, and respond by misbehaving.
 ACADEMIC NEED 6:
SEE LEARNING MODELED BY ADULTS AS AN
EXCITING AND REWARDING ACTIVITY

 Teachers who are more effective in

enhancing students’ motivation to learn
show an interest in and excitement about
learning and model task-related thinking
and problem solving.
 ACADEMIC NEED 7:
EXPERIENCE SUCCESS

 Success experiences are instrumental in

developing feelings of self-worth and confidence
in attempting new activities.

 Following successful experiences, individuals tend

to raise their expectations and set higher goals,
whereas failure is met with lowered aspirations.
 ACADEMIC NEED 8:
HAVE TIME TO INTEGRATE LEARNING

 Students learn at varying rates and in different ways

so it is important to slow down to provide all students
with an opportunity to organize the new ideas that
have been presented.

 Effective teachers develop specific instructional

activities designed to help students summarize new
learning and relate this new knowledge to previous
and future learning and the students’ own lives.
 ACADEMIC NEED 9:
RECEIVE REALISTIC AND IMMEDIATE
FEEDBACK THAT ENHANCES SELF-EFFICACY
 Because students’ sense of academic identity and motivation to
learn is dramatically impacted by being successful, it is
important that they receive feedback clearly designating the
extent to which they have succeeded at a task.
 Students who receive comments more frequently state that
they:
1. Found the task more interesting
2. Worked on the task because they were interested in the
material
3. Attributed their success on the task to their interest and
effort
 ACADEMIC NEED 10:
BE INVOLVED IN SELF-EVALUATING THEIR
LEARNING AND EFFORT

 Involving students in self-evaluation

provides students with opportunities to
understand their academic performance
better and to experience a sense of personal
responsibility.
 ACADEMIC NEED 11:
RECEIVE APPROPRIATE REWARDS FOR
PERFORMANCE GAINS

 Rewards are more effective for increasing

effort than improving quality of
performance, so it is better to use them
when there is a clear goal and a clear
strategy to follow, as well as when students
have the prerequisite skills for completing
the task but are not doing so.
 ACADEMIC NEED 12:
EXPERIENCE A SAFE, WELL ORGANIZED
LEARNING ENVIRONMENT

 The creation of a safe learning

environment is a prerequisite to
helping students meet their academic
potential.
HOWARD GARDNER'S WORK ON MULTIPLE
INTELLIGENCES

 The most important contribution multiple

intelligences theory makes to education is
that it stimulates teachers and students to
be imaginative in selecting curricula,
deciding how the curricula are to be
taught or delivered, and determining how
student knowledge is to be demonstrated.
 MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES:
EIGHT WAYS OF KNOWING
1. Logical/Mathematical Intelligence: often called scientific
thinking, this intelligence deals with inductive and deductive
thinking/reasoning, numbers, and the recognition of abstract
patterns.
2. Visual/Spatial Intelligence: this intelligence, which relies on the
sense of sight and being able to visualize an object, includes the
ability to create internal mental images and pictures.
3. Bodily/Kinesthetic Intelligence: this intelligence is related to
physical movement and the knowings and wisdom of the body,
including the brain’s motor cortex, which controls bodily motion.
4. Musical/Rhythmic Intelligence: this intelligence is based on the
recognition of tonal patterns, including various environmental
sounds, and on a sensitivity to rhythm and beats.
 MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES:
EIGHT WAYS OF KNOWING

5. Naturalist Intelligence: this intelligence deals with the

recognition, appreciation, and understanding of the flora and
fauna of the natural world.
6. Interpersonal Intelligence: this intelligence operates
primarily through person-to-person relationships and
communication.
7. Intrapersonal Intelligence: this intelligence relates to inner
states of being, self-reflection, metacognition (thinking
about thinking), and awareness of spiritual realities.
8. Verbal/Linguistic Intelligence: this intelligence, which is
related to words and language – written and spoken –
dominates most Western educational systems.