Strategies to Motivate Students Essay -- Education, Learning Teaching

Strategies to Motivate Students In the field of education there is a broad spectrum of strategies to motivate students. Through research only a sample of the spectrum was covered, which consisted of twenty-nine sources. Four interrelated categories were created that individually provide strategies to motivate students. The four categories consist of teaching strategies to motivate students, program structure to motivate students, self-motivational strategies, and parent strategies to motivate students. All of these categories conclude that a positive environment provided by parents, school officials, and the students themselves, act to enhance a students motivational drive to succeed in the classroom. Teaching Strategies to Motivate Students A teaching strategy is any technique a teacher projects in the classroom. Enthusiasm and body language in combination with creative classroom activities are effective tools for teaching. According to Barbara Davis in "Incorporating Instructional Behaviors That Motivate Students" from the Tools For Teaching web site, most students respond positively to a well structured course taught by an instructor who is enthusiastic and shows interest in their students as well as their subject. With this in mind, Davis gives six instructional behaviors that teachers can utilize to motivate students. These are holding realistic expectations, helping them to set achievable goals, informing students of how to succeed in their class, strengthening self-motivation, avoiding to create competition among students, and being enthusiastic about their subject. Davis argues, beneath the same web site in Motivating Students, that instructors can do the following to encourage st... ...is a collection of opinions on the subject about teachers and school administrators around the United States. It contains strategies to stimulate students at home and how parents can properly motivate their children to succeed as students throughout their education. 101 Ways Parents Can Help Their Children Achieve is a booklet distributed by the Educational World, written by school administrators. This booklet provides many creative family projects designed to stimulate their children to want to achieve academically. Conclusion A common ground can be derived from all four of the perspectives relating to the broad spectrum of strategies to motivate students. By providing a positive atmosphere at home as well as in the school, a student develops the desire to succeed in the classroom, and later, utilizes this motivation to succeed in life.