What Motivates Individual Students And Engages Them

Another way to build student motivation and engagement is to give them real world problems to solve. By doing this, natural conflict arises, and students have to work together in order to resolve the conflict and continue developing a solution to the problem. When this happens, students learn so much about the problem they are trying to solve, but they also learn skills that will help them become successful in life.

A widely observed behavior in students is their decrease in motivation. Many will label students as being ‘lazy’ or ‘careless’ with their work when in reality multiple factors are influencing their motivation to do well in school. Two kinds of motivation, intrinsic and extrinsic, are the primary influences on how students behave in school. Intrinsic motivation is very important because it is what makes students want to learn more because the reward is self-satisfaction and enjoyment in the tasks they are doing. If a student is more motivated by extrinsic motives it means they are working by external pressures or constraints such as grades. These students will tend to show more signs of extrinsic motivation, which in turn decreases intrinsic motivation. This decrease in intrinsic motivation is what sets many students apart from their seemingly more successful peers. In a study done by Henderlong and Lepper in 2002, it was shown that too much focus on extrinsic values leads to an overall decrease to perform in school because the intrinsic motivation has decreased. This also shows that intrinsic motivation is in fact what leads to students being motivated in school and in the classroom. Overall, intrinsic motivation is crucial to student wellness in terms of behavior, academics, and emotional wellbeing. Authoritative figures in the classroom such as teachers have the most influence on student motivation whether they are aware of it or not. This being said teachers

Engaging students in the classroom can be a difficult task. Understanding the process of how students learn can help a teacher adapt the lesson to meet the needs of all students. I will encounter students that are not intrinsically motivated so I will need to find different ways to motivate each and every student. Understanding how my students learn can provide me with insights as to how to help each student learn which will minimize classroom management problems.

A. According to the article, “Student Motivation: An Overlooked Piece of School Reform,” Motivation can affect a student’s outcome in class.

“ Students do become behaviorally, emotionally, and cognitively involved in the learning activities their teachers provide (e.g., write an essay, solve a math problem), and their extent of effort, enjoyment, and strategic thinking does predict important outcomes, such as achievement. But students also do more than this. Students also, more or less, proactively contribute into the flow of instruction they receive as they attempt not only to learn but also to create a more motivationally supportive learning environment for themselves ( Bandura,

It should be then considered that student’s behaviour would be more positive which should lead to easier management of a group. Though peer

Current research on young adolescent student motivation shows that the teacher must; make the lesson connect to the outside world as much as possible, let the students decide where they sit or what project to work on, guide the student rather than tell them the way, and be someone the student can trust and depend on. Teachers must motivate their students to become better and more engaged within the classroom by using techniques that allow the student to develop their own sense of motivation.

The effects of choice have been studied as a way to motivate students as young as

Jang, H., Kim, E. J., & Reeve, J. (2016). Why students become more engaged or more disengaged during the semester: A self-determination theory dual-process model. Learning And Instruction, 43(Special Issue: Student engagement and learning: theoretical and methodological advances), 27-38. doi:10.1016/j.learninstruc.2016.01.002

Studies regarding the overall performance of children in the classroom have found that as students go throughout the academic year, their engagement or interest in the classroom decreases. The decrease in engagement has been linked to detrimental effects on the development of children in the classroom, such as lower grades. As the article states, “student engagement is a marker for healthy adjustment in adolescence and a precursor to attainment and performance in achievement and social domains.” This particular study looks at student’s perceptions of their teachers and the classroom setting to understand how this affects the engagement or overall involvement in the classroom. The self-determination theory is used in the study as an identifier

Self-motivation is essential for students to partake in an active and responsible role in their education.  Self-motivation allows students to perform at their best and to learn without any sense of limitation.  With this, students will find a reason to work — and as a result, they will give their best to every assignment.  In addition, students will take an initiative to participate in class. Studies made by Csikszentmihalyi and Nakamura state that, “activities will not continue unless they are enjoyable—or unless people are motivated by extrinsic rewards” (602).  Motivated students

Engagement is the time and effort that students use in participating in purposeful educational activities. Engagement is also using institutional resources and opportunities that students take advantage of in participating in meaningful learning activities. Engagement in purposeful, positively activities are contributed to successful outcomes such as GPA, critical thinking skills (Carini, Kuh, & Klein, 2006), and retention (Kuh, Cruce, Shoup, Kinzie, & Gonyea, 2007). Student participation can be related to retention, motivation, and prior learning.

In my field experience sadly, I have not seen a lot of student engagement. The students do not actively participate in class and most of the time they appear to be disinterested in what their teacher is saying. In this classroom I see many of the students staring off into to space and not paying attention. When the students do this instead of trying to engage and involve her students my cooperating teacher gets on to them. I understand students should be respectful and pay attention to their teacher but as a history major a fully aware history can appear to be boring if the information is not presented properly. When all a teacher does is read directly from the book with little class discussion and interaction it makes it hard for the students to become engaged. When students are not fully engaged in the class it makes it difficult for them to absorb all the information the teacher is presenting to them. The more students are engaged the more they are able to learn.

The realization that learning increases with the incorporation of student engagement activities (CITe the CHART RESEARCHER) was just that: evidence that student involvement in the learning process increases learning. It was not a prescription to abandon the lecture, entirely. Yet somehow over the years, professionals have taken to the practice of thinking dichotomously about teaching falls into one of two categories: 1) passive learning and 2) active learning. Furthermore in such instances we are lead to think that all passive learning is bad teaching and to the contrary all active learning is great teaching.

Engagement is vital to student success in the educational setting. Wang and Eccles (2013) quote Helme and Clarke (2001) and Wigfield et. al. (2006) as stating, “Meaningful curricula and