3. Aims
To acknowledge new ways to motivate
students.
To apply these motivational ways in our
school
To know more ways from teachers’
experiences
4. Introduction
Students have short attention spans and
prefer now to later. This is especially true at
the beginning of the year.
Teachers, more than any district or school
wide programs, have the most power to
motivate students because they’re on the
front lines
5. 1. Praise Students in Ways Big
and Small
Recognize work in class, display good work in
the classroom and send positive notes home
to parents, hold weekly awards in your
classroom and publish good work in the
student newspaper to acknowledge student’s
hard work.
6. 2. Expect Excellence
Set high, yet realistic expectations. Make sure
to voice those expectations. Set short terms
goals and celebrate when they are achieved.
7. 3. Spread Excitement Like a
Virus
Show your enthusiasm in the subject and use
appropriate, concrete and understandable
examples to help students grasp it.
8. 4. Mix It Up
It’s a classic concept and the basis for
differentiated instruction, but it needs to be
said: using a variety of teaching methods caters to
all types of learners. By doing this in an orderly
way, you can also maintain order in your
classroom. In a generic example for daily
instruction, journal for 10 minutes to open class;
introduce the concept for 15 minutes;
discuss/group work for 15 minutes; Q&A or guided
work time to finish the class. This way, students
know what to expect everyday and have less
opportunity to act up
9. 5. Assign Classroom Jobs
With students, create a list of jobs for the
week. Using the criteria of your choosing, let
students earn the opportunity to pick their
classroom jobs for the next week. These jobs
can cater to their interests and skills.
Classroom Job Examples
10. 6. Hand Over Some Control
If students take ownership of what you do in class, then
they have less room to complain (though we all know,
it’ll never stop completely). Take an audit of your class,
asking what they enjoy doing, what helps them learn,
what they’re excited about after class. Multiple choice
might be the best way to start if you predict a lot of
“nothing” or “watch movies” answers.
After reviewing the answers, integrate their ideas into
your lessons or guide a brainstorm session on how
these ideas could translate into class.
11. 7. Open-format Fridays
You can also translate this student
empowerment into an incentive
program. Students who attended class all
week, completed all assignments and obeyed
all classroom rules can vote on Friday’s
activities (lecture, discussion, watching a
video, class jeopardy, acting out a scene from
a play or history).
12. 8. Relating Lessons to
Students’ Lives
students will care more if they identify
themselves or their everyday lives in what
they’re learning.
13. 9. Track Improvement
In those difficult classes, it can feel like a
never-ending uphill battle, so try to remind
students that they’ve come a long way. Set
achievable, short-term goals, emphasis
improvement, keep self-evaluation forms to fill
out and compare throughout the year, or
revisit mastered concepts that they once
struggled with to refresh their confidence.
14. 10. Reward Positive Behavior
Outside the Classroom
Tie service opportunities, cultural experiences,
extracurricular activities into the curriculum for
extra credit or as alternative options on
assignments. Have students doing Habitat for
Humanity calculate the angle of the freshly cut
board, count the nails in each stair and multiply
the number of stairs to find the total number of
nails; write an essay about their experience
volunteering or their how they felt during
basketball tryouts; or any other creative option
they can come up with.
15. 11. Plan Dream Field Trips
With your students, brainstorm potential field
trips tiered by budget. Cash incentive money
can then be earned toward the field trips for
good behavior, performance, etc. The can see
their success in the classroom as they move
up from the decent zoo field trip to the good
state capitol day trip. Even though the reward
is delayed, tracking progress will give
students that immediate reward.