Motivation
No one likes being told what to do. If you encounter a challenging student, telling them how to behave will never work. The goal is to create an environment where the student realizes they are part of the group not the leader and not the follower...just an important member who doesn't need to prove a point.
Most students are coming back into the field of study after not being there for a long time sometimes and I believe that they all could use motivation. I also believe that it is the motivation that keeps some of our students in school.
Motivation is certanily a key component especially if you have a student returning after being out of school for a long period of time. I was one of those students so what I found helped is that I listened to the instruction given as well as went through the syllabus and highlighted any areas that I did not understand so that I would have the understanding that I needed from the instructor. Motivation does keep our students in school because without it they fall off somewhere and we lose them and that may very well be because of the instructor and not so much the student so my suggestion would be to always keep an open mind as to what is going on and ask students for clarification to what it is that you are doing that way you keep the lines of communication open which is half the battle and if you happen to get students who may not wish to share concerns in front of other students make sure you are available other times so that they feel they can come to you with those concerns. This way you can help the student along the way which helps in the motivation process.
Hi Valonda,
Great points made! Over my 23 years of teaching I have certainly heard of students dropping out because of Mr. Doe. You never know what the real reason is unless a student is honest with you, but I would hate to ever have that label on me is the reason a student dropped out because of me. We must be professional, motivating, fair, and extremely knowledgeable in our profession.
Patricia Scales
We try to relate the behaviors to the work environment and how it relates to the work place. We teach in a professional school. They are motivated to be successful in work.
Students are motivated for many reasons: individual improvement, intellectual curiosity, career goal setting, or advancement, career change, employement requirement or employment competencies or the completion of degree or certificate requirement. Although these motivational reasons are broad and varied, the Instructor must possess the skills to motivate students with variety of activities,including occasional risk-taking.
Motivation involves the process that energize, direct, and sustains behavior. That is, motivated behavior that is energized, directed, and sustained. Encouraging words, praise, or comments on an assignments submitted or on a test paper can all be motivational. Given consideration to students' personal problems when possible. For example there was a time I had a student with kidney problem and I encouraged student by being flexable with regards to class assignments,paper deadlines,and other assignments.
