Sparking Motivation: Strategies to Motivate Learning

If motivation is the engine that drives effort, how do we fuel it? Motivation is like a fire that needs to be sparked, sustained, and used with purpose. When demotivated, students can feel bored, unexcited, and disinterested. Learning something new becomes even more challenging. When motivation is high, students engage more, tend to try harder and express curiosity about new ideas. What motives one student might not inspire the fire in another. There are four elements that drive motivation - attention, relevance, confidence, and satisfaction. Take your lessons to the next level by incorporating the strategies recommended for each

Get, Keep, and Focus Attention

When it comes to attention, ask yourself, how can I make the learning experiences interesting? Start by capturing their interest, building an attitude of inquiry, and maintaining their attention. attention.

• Capture interest: Use visuals to illustrate ideas like cartoons, flow charts, videos, steps, or criteria. Make eye contact and express excitement. Try smiling.

• Build curiosity: Present a problem that can be solved with the skills and knowledge of the lesson that they are about to engage in. Consider using debatable topics, conflicting ideas, and unexpected thoughts.

• Maintain focus: Change your tone and register (serious, funny, joyful, etc.). Vary how students engage (questions, activities, writing prompts, puzzle, games, turn and talks). Revamp how students' materials look by adding visuals and varying texts.

Make it Relevant

By relevance, think value and the feeling of connection. We stand by our values and live our lives based off of them. At the heart of making relevance, is knowing and getting to know your students through relationships and trust. When designing lessons, ask yourself, how will materials and experiences be valuable to my students’ passions, goals, dreams, and desires? Try explaining the value of the lesson, seeing the person in the student, and building on what students already know.

• Explaining value: State explicitly why the lesson is important. Use examples or stories that make learning something new worth it. Present the future value of the lesson by stating what will be improved and how the lesson helps with reaching future goals.

• Personalize: Use language that makes the student feel seen, heard, and cared for. Give example that illustrate what achievement looks like. Helps students visual success and the feeling that go with it. Tell stories of noteworthy people in aligned to your schools values that have overcome challenges and achieved goals.

• Build on prior knowledge: State how new learning connects to prior knowledge. Use metaphors to help make these connections. Give options and choice as it relates to content and assessment.

Boost Confidence

Students can experience anxiety and fear failure. How do we help students feel successful and believe in themselves? By establishing the criteria for success, creating opportunity to success, and developing a sense of personal responsibility, we can support how students build confidence:

• Criteria for success: Define what successful learning looks like in terms of observable behaviors and evidence in student work. Allow students to create their own goals for learning.

• Opportunities to succeed: Make sure your instruction is organized and follows a predictable sequence. Use feedback to affirm and correct student work according to the criteria for success. When planning, ensure that objectives, activities, and assessment align.

• Personal responsibility: Offer choice in assessments, assignment, and learning environment. Allow learners to go at their pace. Gather feedback from students on how to make the learning more interesting.

Feelings of Satisfaction

Satisfaction refers to a feeling of joy, rewarding success, and promoting equity. Ask yourself, what can we do to help the students feel good about their experience and desire to continue learning? Positive recognition, rewards systems, and fairness are conditions for satisfaction

Positive recognition: Acknowledge the actions, risks, and efforts students displayed that related to success. Use positive and supportive comments in materials or feedback that are aligned to the goals for learning. Ask about and provide information about interests students express.

Rewards: Set up games with a scoring system for activities that are potentially boring. Praise student responses. Use certificates or tokens as acknowledgements of success. Avoid punishment or threatening language or tactics.

Fairness: Make sure challenges levels are consistent to what was taught. Ensure assessments reflect the learning goals of the curriculum.

Next step: Reflect and Apply

Use these strategies to power up motivation and reflect on current practices. What strategies do you already do and which will you incorporate?