Strategies for Maintaining Student Motivation

Setting Goals for the First Day Back

Start by having a plan for that first day back after the holidays. Make it a relaunch day. As you spend time reconnecting with students, set goals. Get your students actively involved in setting those goals to help them focus on the tasks at hand. Also, fill the day with fun lessons and review games. Offer points and/or prizes for teams or individuals.

Incorporate Games into Your Lessons

As a continuation of those fun, first-day activities, incorporate fun and games in lessons throughout each week. Games are a fantastic way to keep students motivated and focused at any age. Games are exciting and fun. Many games provide the context necessary for students to internalize the information and truly gain understanding.

Also, a lot of classroom games require teamwork, providing an excellent opportunity for students to collaborate with each other. Struggling students can really pick up a lot from the more advanced students’ participation in the games. Another benefit to games is that it helps students understand that sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. Being able to understand and accept that is a critical life lesson.

There are so many ways to incorporate games into your classroom. You can do whole-group or small-group games, teacher-created games, or online games. These can be adapted to subject and skill-level quite easily to meet the individual needs of your students.

Prioritize Reconnecting with Students

Connecting with our students should always be a priority, because it is through that connection that meaningful relationships develop. It is very difficult for learning to take place without those meaningful relationships in place. So, as we return to school after the holidays, we should remember to prioritize reconnecting with our students. That’s why it is so important to have a fun-filled day planned upon returning. Spend some time laughing and learning together. Also, look for reasons to chat with your students individually. Find out what happened while they were out on break. While it is not something we like thinking about, the truth is that some of our students only feel safe and loved at school. Some of them may need to talk about some of the things they experienced over the break. Some students may just want to hear about what you did because they missed you. Regardless, it is very important to be available to lend an ear as we return.

Utilize Brain Breaks

Brain breaks are a very important and very effective way to “reset” the brain for learning and focus. Brain breaks can consist of a wide variety of activities, but I like to incorporate short bursts of physical activities to break up the scholarly pursuits of the day. This is a great way to keep students motivated and refreshed. If they know they will often get a short break to move around a bit, they are more likely to stay motivated and focused during academics. I like to use gonoodle.com for short physical activity breaks.

Virtual Field Trips

Since COVID-19 has become such a concern, it is most likely the case, wherever you teach, that field trips are out. Field trips can be a great motivator for students. It gives them something to look forward to and a reason for focusing on a particular unit of study. Therefore, it is unfortunate that this resource is not available to us at this time. Instead, utilize virtual field trips to keep motivation up and to vary your activities. Perhaps you can begin a unit with a virtual field trip to help students visualize what they will be learning.

Social Time

Allow students time each day, whether in-person or virtual, to spend talking with each other, sharing ideas, and asking questions. Another idea is to allow students to have some time before class starts or to stay after class is over and talk amongst themselves without direct teacher involvement. It is important that they develop social skills and cultivate relationships with one another.

*Updated January, 2021

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As a teacher, it often seems easier to help a struggling student out, rather than use teaching strategies to give them the tools to get through it. We often have to fight the urge to give the student the answer or tell them what to do because we have 20 other students that need our help too. However, it is part of our job to keep our struggling students working so that they can learn and recognize what hard work is all about. It’s important for them to learn the lesson of persistence and perseverance. Here are 10 simple teaching strategies that you can use to help your struggling students so they can become more independent workers.

1.  Fight the Urge to Tell Students the Answer

As mentioned earlier, sometimes it is just easier to give the struggling student the answer rather than taking the time to give them the tools to find the answer themselves. However, as a teacher, this is something you should not do, ever. It is your job to teach the student and give them the tools that they will be able to take with them for the rest of their lives. This means fighting the urge to give them the answer just to save you time with your other students.

2. Give Students Time to Think of the Answer

Research has shown that teachers, on average, only wait one second or less between asking students a question and calling upon a student to answer the question. If teachers give students just a few seconds more to really think about their answer, they’re much more like to give and answer and provide elaboration.

3. Allow Student to Explain Their Answers

How many times have you asked a student a question to repeatedly get the answer, “I don’t know”? Encourage students to come up with an answer, even if they are unsure. Teach them how to explain to you how they got their answer. Once you find out how they got their answer, it will be easier for you to figure out what they are doing wrong. Require that all students must come up with an answer and be able to explain how they got it.

4. Write Down All Directions

Struggling students can often have a hard time paying attention and remembering things. If you give them oral directions, they may have difficulty fully remembering them, which means they will struggle to know what to do next. Make sure that you always write down everything that you want the students to do on the front board so there are no excuses from any student and they always have a resource that they can refer to.

5. Teach Perseverance

Teach students that when the going gets tough, they must keep on working. This means when they get stuck on a question, they need to try out a few different strategies until they get it. A simple way to do this is to keep a few tips and strategies listed somewhere in the classroom, preferably on a wall where all students can see it from their desks.

6. Teach Time Management Skills

Struggling students have a hard managing their time and daily tasks because oftentimes it feels overwhelming to them. Teach students how to manage their time and their tasks by having them write down their whole schedule for one day. Then, have students estimate how long they think it will take them to do each task that they listed. Go over the list and discuss how much time should be spent on each task. This activity will help them understand that time management skills are essential, and that they must take ownership of their learning in order to keep them from struggling in school.

7. Take it One Task at a Time

Sometimes the easiest way for a struggling student to understand a concept better is to take it one question at a time. If you find that you have many struggling students, then this is the best option for the whole group. For example, if students are doing small group work, instead of giving them a list of 10 questions to answer together all at once, have them answer one question at a time, and after each question, have them regroup as a whole group before allowing them to go onto the next question.

8. Ask Questions that Require Students to Think

Struggling students need to practice thinking on their own. Take the time to ask questions that make students have to think critically about their answer. Teach them how to make inferences and not just blurt out any answer that comes to mind. The more they take the time to think about their answers, the easier time they will have when trying to come up with solutions to the answer.

9. Yield the Chronic Hand Raisers

Students who are having a hard time often get the urge to raise their hands and ask for help frequently. To stop this from happening, you should come up with a strategy that will allow students to move on when they get stuck on a question. Some teachers find that sticky notes or red and green flip cards are an effective technique. Other teachers find that limiting the number of times a student is allowed to ask a question for each lesson works well too.

10. Give Students Encouragement

Effective teachers encourage students and motivate them to do well in school. They take the time to praise them and tell them that they can do anything when they put their mind to it. Be that teacher, the teacher that tells them they can do it!

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10 Tips on How to Motivate Students to Love Reading

1. Let students see you read. If you are going to encourage your students to read, then you better make sure you’re leading by example. Instead of grading papers when students are silent reading, read a book. Talk about the book that you are reading with them, and how you can’t wait to read before you go to bed. Try other impactful storytelling activities in your classroom.
2. Allow students to read the whole book before discussing it. Give students the opportunity to read the book before you pull it apart and talk about literary devices. Sometimes when all you do is talk about the plot, setting, or genre, you are taking all the fun and pleasure out of the story. Give students the chance to read it once through, then you can go chapter by chapter and dissect.
3. Invite a local author to class. A great way to promote a love of a reading is to invite an author to your classroom to discuss their book. This may be just the thing to inspire your students to read or even be an author themselves someday.
4. Teach students reading strategies. Many students don’t like to read because it’s hard for them. Teach children reading strategies (i.e. repeated reading) to help them feel confident and read fluently.
5. Set up a book club. Book clubs and reading groups are a great way for students to socialize and share their thoughts. This interaction makes reading so much more enjoyable, and it enhances their comprehension skills.
6. Let students choose their own books. Studies have shown that when students choose their own books, it will boost their reading ability. Make sure you have an abundance of different genres and themes in your classroom library from which students may choose.
7. Use technology to create an e-book. Children love technology, and there is nothing is better than using these tools to get students to love reading. Download an app like Book Creator orebook Magic and have students create their own works. Kids will love sharing their books with their peers, and they can even share their stories digitally.
8. Introduce students to a book series. Whether students are into adventures or fantasy novels, there is a book series for everyone. All you have to do is find out what your students love and get them to read the first selection. Once they get a taste of the set, they will definitely want to keep reading to find out what happens next.
9. Allow students to dislike books. Think of it like Facebook—students can give a “thumbs up” if they like it or a “thumbs down” if they don’t. This will also help you choose future class novels as well.
10. Helps students see the importance of reading. Sometimes just knowing the facts can encourage someone to see their world differently. For example, knowing that maintaining a healthy lifestyle may help us live a longer life can motivate us to make better life choices. Laying out the benefits of reading may be the best way to enhance appreciation and encourage students to pick up a book on their own.

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