How to Avoid De-Motivating Students

I really enjoy the articles, advices, and presentations of Rick Wormeli.

Although his focus is often on middle school and young adolescents, Rick’s advice is applicable for elementary, middle and high school.

The article summary below focuses on how teachers can motivate students.

His list of de-motivators was especially intriguing to me, as they made me think of teachers I had and of times I committed these no-nos as a teacher.

Joe

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The era of blaming young adolescents for their lack of motivation is over.

Below are twelve things that de-motivate students:

·      Telling them how important today’s lesson will be in high school and beyond

·      Teachers who talk the whole class period or speak endlessly when disciplining

·      Complex assignments that students don’t have the skills to complete and have no clear evaluative criteria

·      Telling students what they’re probably feeling and thinking

·      Teachers who see teaching middle school as something to do until a high-school position opens up

·      Fs, zeroes, and other marks of failure

·      Spending the day working on weaknesses

·      Treating middle-schoolers like elementary-school kids

·      Belittling a student’s strong emotional response to something minor in his or her life

·      Classes that claim to be relevant to students’ lives but deny them access to technology

·      Unwavering program fidelity or blind adherence to pacing guides

·      Sarcasm

Teaching young adolescents is a dance between middle schoolers’ lingering childlike curiosity and their mounting distractions: peers, sex, risk-taking, pop stars, and keeping track of body parts in time and space.

Although any one of these motivational elements below may not work every time, several in tandem likely will.

Realize that motivation is created with students. Our goal should be a classroom culture that cultivates curiosity and personal investment, one in which students feel safe to engage in the activity or topic without fear of embarrassment or rejection.”

Understand that there’s no such thing as laziness. If a student appears lazy, there’s always something else going on that we can’t see – or can’t control. Humans are hard-wired to do demanding and complex things. Young adolescents are developmentally primed for learning things that are intellectually and physically advanced and for getting excited about their growing expertise and the freedoms that come with competence. If they’re disengaged, what’s the reason? Skill deficits? Fear of looking stupid?

Empathize and build trust. Young adolescents intensely value teachers’ opinions of them. They need to trust that teachers won’t humiliate them or let them humiliate themselves. They must know we have their backs – specifically, what will the teacher do when a student gives a wrong answer in class?

Remember where they are. For ideas on what’s developmentally appropriate, the Association for Middle Level Education’s provides a list of effective practices at http://bit.ly/ZnlmeH. Incorporate social interaction in lessons, switching activities every 10-15 minutes, helping students recover from bad decisions and failures, teaching each topic in more than one way, showing enthusiasm for the subject, and offering regular opportunities for students to include their own culture and develop a unique voice.

Give descriptive feedback. Middle-school students are constantly asking themselves, Am I normal? How am I doing? Teachers must give them a clear sense of what’s expected academically and clear feedback on where they stand in relation to goals. Motivational teachers provide many exemplars, formative feedback, and opportunities for students to self-assess. It’s also important for students to have a chance to revise and improve their work in response to feedback.

Teach the way the mind learns. Young adolescents crave vividness, structure, and patterns. Prime their brains for each lesson with goals that relate to personal experience, show them a pathway to mastery, and build in links to the arts, social studies, math, foreign languages, and literature. The key to solid learning is for students to make these connections themselves, not just be told about them.

Tell stories. Young adolescents are like first-time visitors to an esoteric sculpture museum who don’t understand why everyone’s so impressed with a particular piece of art. Then a museum curator explains the story behind the artist or his technique, and the skeptic is jarred into wide-eyed appreciation and curiosity. Young adolescents are storytellers and story receivers. Narratives not only appeal to their theater of the mind, but they also provide connections among disparate parts.