Increasing Motivation in the Classroom

Keeping students engaged throughout every sigle task is ideal but unrealistic. This blogpost is for educators looking for ways to increase motivation and engagement in their classroom.

Basic Needs

Deci and Ryan's self determination theory and motivation puts together years of research on this topic. To increase motivation there are certain needs that need to met such as autonomy, competence, and relatedness. According to Self-determination theory and motivation by Deci and Ryan (2000), "autonomy is the need to feel in control of one's own actions and decisions". When students have the liberty to choose how they learn and how they portray their knowledge, it increases their engagement and confidence; which in turn helps boost motivation. When children don't have freedom to create or explore, they become stressed, feel pressured, and unmotivated.

Another big contributor to lack of motivation is not feeling able to do something. If a child feels unable to complete a task, they'll get frustrated and disengaged. Now, if the same child is given some scaffolding through the task, they will be more inclined to do it again on their own. Once the student is able to complete that task on their own, their confidence, engagement, and motivation increase. Developing problem-solving skills is essential in this sense because it also helps their emotional development. Feeling adequate and confident in your skills improves self-esteem and deters emotional outbursts due to frustration or anger.

Lastly, children need to be able to relate to others and feel values, just like adults. "When students feel a sense of relatedness, they are more likely to participate actively in the classroom and collaborate with their peers" (Deci and Ryan, 2000). Children and people in general work better when they feel like they are in the right place, doing the right thing. Providing this to students can help create a supportive and welcoming environment they need for a healthy academic development.

Sociocultural and Cognitive Factors

Culture is a huge part of our identity and differing cultural standards can sometimes cause problems and misunderstandings in the classroom. Different families value different aspects and subjects of education, depending on their cultural and ethnic origin. Some parents respect the teacher too much to feel like they are allowed to give recommendations on their child's education. While there are others who view teachers as second moms who are responsible for teaching everything that wasn't taught at home.

When addressing these differences, the conversations can impact students. Well, not just the conversation but the type of relationship and social exchange the family has with the teacher. A negative rapport between families and teachers can cause the child to feel singled out, disengaged, and unmotivated. This can negatively impact his performance in the classroom, his confidence, and possibly his behavior.

It is important to work on student's beliefs and behaviors about themselves. This can be done through simple activities such as affirmations, mindfulness, and words of encouragement. How we see ourselves is a huge influence of the culture, family, and community we are born into. Culture and community also influence our ethics and our reasoning process. The way we set up goals for ourselves and the means we take to achieve them was taught to us by our family, our culture, and our community. This all affects our performance at school or work.

A cross-cultural review of how socio-cultural factors affect student motivation (2020) by Wang, Guo, and Degol, provides a few steps to addressing some of these factors. Culturally responsive teaching can create an inclusive classroom environment and help students feel valued and respected. Like mentioned above, having a positive relationship with the teacher can help increase motivation, and performance. Sometimes providing simple resources for a project or providing information for a family's specific needs can really go a long way. Wang, Guo, and Degol also emphasize the importance of teaching goal setting skills. Goals help students keep track of their learning and adjust their pace of learning. Mastering goal-setting is about learning to focus and improve instead of just completing a task.

Classroom Techniques

Teachers model desired behavior that students imitate. There are some teacher attributes that naturally help motivate students such as granting autonomy and positive relationships. Providing students with autonomy gives them control over their learning, like discussed above. When students have control over how they learn something, its naturally engaging for them. Additionally, students like having teachers they can talk to about non-academic topics, having a good relationship with students helps them feel valued. They are people too and they experience difficulties outside of school too, these cannot be diminished.

• Scaffold to build confidence

  Scaffolding is essential in education to build skills and confidence. This is done by providing students with tasks at their zone of actual development and either slowly increasing difficulty or slowly decreasing help or support. For example, while teaching a new math topic, you do the first exercise as a demonstration. The second exercise is done with the help of the students, and the third exercise, students must tell you how to do it. I Have tried this one, and sometimes you'll have to do it more than three times but you modeled the process and scaffold the work. (APA,2023)

• Goals

  Setting goals helps students visualize the path. Current goals can be connected to future goals, it gives students hope and motivation. For example, if a student's goal is to become a historian, give them articles or books tailored to their interest. At the same time, if they do end up becoming a historian, the information and knowledge is useful. Moreover, students appreciate when teachers know their interests because it lets them know that they are seen and they matter. (APA,2023)

• Foster Connections

  A supportive environment plays a huge role in student behavior and motivation. Allowing students to interact and converse about non-school related topics while they work on a project helps with their social skills. It also helps with their emotional development if paired with classmates that aren't usually paired. This encourages students to step out of their shells, communicate, learn, and improve problem solving skills.

In conclusion, meeting student's basic needs and maintaining a good relationship with the family work miracles. Students need to feel heard, valued, and respected just like any other person. It is our job as teachers, educators, and caretakers, to step in provide our expertise when something is not quite right.

References

American Psychological Association. (2023). Five ways to boost student motivation. https://www.apa.org/ed/precollege/psychology-teacher-network/introductory-psychology/student-motivation

Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2000). Self-determination theory and motivation. Oklahoma State University. Retrieved from https://open.library.okstate.edu/foundationsofeducationaltechnology

Wang, MT., Guo, J. & Degol, J.L.(2020) The Role of Sociocultural Factors in Student Achievement Motivation: A Cross-Cultural Review. Adolescent Res Rev 5, 435–450. Retrieved from: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40894-019-00124-y