Motivating+the+Unmotivated

While researching for how to motivate the unmotivated student, I discovered a website called Learning-Focused: Professional Development and Exemplary Lessons for Your School’s Success. The website listed numerous great ideas for these situations that every teacher has to face. It states that one of the first teacher need to realize is students must know certain things in order to be willing to try in their classroom. These include the value of the class and the importance of what they are learning. The students also need to believe they have a chance of succeeding within the classroom. Before a teacher can really have a student understand or learn in their classroom, these two beliefs need to be met for each student. The article first provides self-esteem activities including positive postcards or adopt-a-student. For positive postcards, teachers mail postcards home recognizing an achievement. Adopt-a-student is when a teacher identifies a student needing additional adult support while switching a student each week. The article also reveals learning-focused connecting strategies and academic activities that motivate. It lists collaborative pairs for review and summarizing which allows students to connect with their fellow peers and create bonds with them. Also, teachers can have essential questions to set the focus that will captivate and intrigue students into finding an answer. Students should be exposed to acceleration and previewing strategies which allows them to get an idea of what will be taught allowing each student to builds confidence. It is also important for teacher to have celebrations of small successes. It will make students realize how capable they are to do well in school. Another idea the article discusses is having academic fairs whether for other classes or families. These fairs provide students the opportunity to showcase their work and gain positive feedback from others. There are many different strategies that teachers can use in order to motivate the unmotivated. Number 2 On the website Scholastic.com, I found an article titled Four Ways to Motivate the Unmotivated. The article list four ways to motivate the unmotivated student. The first was to focus on things that interest the student maybe by relating readings from short stories or novels to their lives. This provides them a connection to the text and helps them understand it in a way that is more retainable. The second way is to provide a clear target. When students to do not understand directions or an assignment given, they get fustrated and decide to give up. However, if the students understand the task and have small checkpoints, they are more likely to stay motivated. Thirdly, the author suggests using a variety of teaching styles since there are a variety of teaching styles within the classroom. Students learn auditorally, visually, and kinestically, which should all be met by the teacher. Lastly, it states that teachers should use tools that are used on a regular basis including technology. These can be twitter, ipads, iphones, and others used frequently can be implemented correctly within the classroom. Students will be able to use something that they use every day and can enjoy doing.  Number 3 media type="youtube" key="me5u0Rab3RQ" height="315" width="560" Laura is from Youngwritersworkshops.com and she provides a few good methods in order to motivate students in a classroom. She stresses the importance of a partnership with the parents. Parents have a tremendous influence on their children and if you get them involved in the learning process so will their children. There is also emphasis placed on creating and stating specific goals for the students. These can be long or short term goals for the classroom. If students know what they are working towards they will become more involved and active. In addition, Laura states that creating open, new experiences for students can be very beneficial for them. Whenever something new is brought to a child's attention, they become interested and want to know about it. Unlike other articles I have read, she does not believe that rewards are good to foster motivation. In the long run, she says that research shows it will end up hurting them. Overall, Laura provides good points to use in order to motivate students.
 * Kelsey**
 * Number 1**


 * Megan**

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I was searching through Youtube, and I came across this video. The video gives you some idea for how to create a supportive environment in your classroom, which the makers of this video argue is the most important thing you can do to motivate your students. It is important to instill this type of classroom environment from day one so that your students feel comfortable and eager to learn. In addition, you, as a teacher, must be supportive.

-Express enthusiasm and excitement for learning and students will too. -Be respectful of all students and their answers and ideas, because children will return that favor. -Use humor to make learning fun and to keep students engaged. -Voice your expectations so students know what they are. -Emphasize the process of learning, not just grades. Other wise, children will see a poor grade as a reflection of their ability. -Help students reach their full potential
 * How To Be Supportive/Have a Supportive Environment**:


 * Caterina**

Teachers talk a lot about trying to find ways to help motivate the students who seem to be uninterested in what they are learning. Although many teachers believe they have found solid ways to help their students become motivated to learn, there are still some students who are just not interested in learning. I found an article on EducationWorld that was written by Doctor Ken Shore. This article lists different ways to help students become interested in learning. At the start of the article, Dr. Shore talks about two challenges teachers face when working with an unmotivated student. The first challenge is showing the student that by putting in the effort, they will be successful. The second challenge is to find the situations and settings that motive the student the most. To help these challenges, Dr. Shore gives a list of seven strategies to use in the classroom. The first strategy is to “interrupt the cycle of failure”. Dr. Shore believes that a student that feels they always fail at their academic work is unmotivated to work because they are afraid of that failure. He says to help a student that feels this way, give them work that is more in their level and work that will help boost their confidence level. By making a student feel more confident, they will have the feeling that they can complete their work and will want to continue to push themselves with more work at a harder level. The next strategy is to give the student some choice. Dr. Shore believes that by giving a student a choice in their learning, they will be more interested in the work they are doing and they will also try to take ownership over their own learning. The next strategy Dr. Shore talks about is incorporating the students’ interest into the lesson. In a big classroom it may be difficult to incorporate all the students interests into one lesson, but by doing interest inventories, a teacher can find similar interests and try to incorporate them into their lessons. Along with incorporating a student’s interest, it is also important to relate lessons to real life applications. Some students believe that what they are learning is not important and that they will not need to know it later on in life, but by showing a student how a lesson relates to life, they will be more interested in learning and knowing that concept. Dr. Shore also discusses that some students may feel overwhelmed with the amount of work that is given to them and feel that they will not be able to complete it all, so they chose to not do it all. To help students that feel overwhelmed, it is a good idea to give them fewer problems than students who are motivated to complete their work. Most teachers do not like to switch up their learning styles once they find one that works for them, however Dr. Shore assures that changing a teaching style can help encourage students to participate more and want to learn new material. He suggest instead of lecturing students, it is a good idea to create more hands on activities to help get the students engaged with their learning. The last strategy that Dr. Shore suggests is a very important one that many teachers make a mistake of doing. He says that instead of comparing students to their peers, it is a good idea to just focus on the student’s individual performance and improvement. By comparing a student to their peers who are performing better, it can cause that student to become unmotivated and uninterested in learning.

This article was found at: [|educationworld.com]

Another good tool to use as an educator to get a better idea of how to help your students is the book "Helping Students Motivate Themselves" by Larry Ferlazzo. In this book, Ferlazzo gives great examples of how to your students push themselves by using many different methods. He lists some methods that are very helpful like brain-based learning, classroom management, and using technology. Another great tool in this book that teachers can use while writing their lesson plans are guiding questions about motivation. Some examples of questions can be: How do you motivate students? How do you help students see the importance of personal resonsibility? How do you deal with a student who is being disruptive? How do you regain control of an out-of-control class?

This book can be a great tool for new teachers and can be used as a guide for many!

Nicole

Motivating Students

As I was researching this topic, I came across a Wikispace that focuses on all the different aspects that involve motivating students inside the classroom. The page is called Motivating Underachievers- Reaching All Students and can be found on the McMEL Resources Wiki at http://mcmel-resources.wikispaces.com/Motivating+Underachievers. On this page, there are links to articles that deal with motivating underachievers, motivating students with engaging tasks, differentiated instruction, creating an inviting classroom environment, the teacher’s leadership role and more. There is even a link that contains examples of schools where even the most unmotivated students were motivated. The authors of the Wiki is the Maine Center for Meaningful Engaged Learning who works to bring quality information to educators on teaching and learning practices that engage learners in meaningful learning. The link to the McMEL website is [].

Heres a YouTube video I found that talks about the different kinds of unmotivated students you could have in your classroom and different methods and techniques to use to help motivate them in the classroom and in learning.media type="youtube" key="7Bb2lxWwgJc" height="315" width="420"