how to motivate students

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Bappy12
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Joined: Mon Dec 23, 2024 4:19 am

how to motivate students

Post by Bappy12 »

... What's the point of a student seeing his grade if he doesn't learn anything from the correction? And, on the other hand, what's the point of a student passing a subject if the day after the exam he's going to voluntarily forget everything he memorized but didn't learn? Nothing at all.

Beyond the curriculum: Motivating students.
It is necessary to go a little beyond the minimums established in the programming objectives because the objective should not be to "pass" the subject but to "understand" the part of the world that fits within the limits of the subject and, above all, to enjoy the subject. The important thing is not the grade, the grade is only a consequence of knowing how to explain what has been learned and, if teachers do it well, all students pass because they all learn. As a teacher, when a student fails, I feel that I also fail because I have not been able to convey the knowledge to him or to motivate him so that what I teach him is, at least, interesting.

Nowadays, with the amount of information we have on the Internet and other easily accessible sources, we cannot continue to focus teaching on teaching theoretical content, but on "shaking" students to always leave them "thirsty" so that they want more, approach the sources and drink with pleasure. But we must not forget to give them tools that allow them to discern which sources are worth drinking from, which will hydrate them and which will poison them.


How to motivate?
So how do we do it? The first thing is to understand that school cannot be separated from the world, children have to be able to discover their life experience in what they study at school. It is obvious that something is wrong when a child from the countryside fails science, for example. I remember the face of a student when he discovered that a "heterogeneous mixture" was a salad. On the other hand, we have to understand that the world is one, it is not separated into portions, we divide it into subjects to be able to better understand it but the Renaissance, for example in history, is the same as that of literature; and this, which seems obvious to us, is not so obvious to students.

Although the best motivation is the one that comes from within, kuwait whatsapp numbers the intrinsic one, it is true that there are some things that we can do to improve the motivation of our students, such as relating the subject to the students' lives. For example, I remember one time when I was a student and I met "the math guy" one afternoon in a pool hall and since that day I understand trigonometry better.

You can also "surprise" them with activities that increase their curiosity, such as videos, games, etc., or activities that rely on their personal skills. For example, one year I had to teach classical culture to a group of students who were not interested and had chosen it to escape from the other elective, which they thought was more difficult. In the end, it was a very active class because we made a cardboard "domus" and a life-size Roman legionary uniform with soda cans and tire rubber. The funny thing is that in the end they worked much harder than those in the other elective and everyone was very happy.



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Taking students into account is the main thing
This brings us to the need to put the students at the centre , they are the real protagonists of all this. I don't go to class to fulfil the programme, or to show off, or to be the child-eating ogre; I'm only here to help them in their learning process. The rest: the programme, the activities, all of that are means and not ends. And not all teachers are clear about that.

It is true that sometimes it is necessary to give a master class, but students have to be able to interrupt, ask questions when they need to, give their opinion, and so the class is enjoyable and a place of knowledge, not discipline or submission. Sometimes you have to know when to stop, pay attention to the needs of the students and then continue where you left off once you have overcome the obstacle that was preventing you from moving forward.

Activities to motivate students
Another option that I find interesting and motivating is the development of cross-curricular activities , that is, activities that involve several subjects and in which the students' role and collaborative work according to each one's abilities are highlighted. Of course, for this to happen, teachers have to be as committed or more than the students because this requires a lot of prior work in programming, designing the activity, programming, etc. How can we motivate our students if we are unmotivated? Children are experts at detecting our passion for what we teach, but also if there is apathy or lack of interest.

Finally, I invite you to use ICTs and new resources. We are always on this subject and at the risk of seeming boring, we do not use them to their full potential. There is a teacher at my school who tells his students "Open the tablet to page 200, so-and-so is reading." That is not true. Once, years ago, I had a student in 1st ESO who never came to class but I found out that he really liked computers, so I made him my assistant with the projector and that made him always come to my class to help me. Another possibility, less elaborate but also very profitable, is to show them a film and organize a film forum in the classroom where the film is discussed and, for example, historical errors are found to encourage critical thinking.
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