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Faculty cannot control everything, but they can create a classroom environment that can encourage students' motivation. Both intrinsic and extrinsic factors affect whether students feel interested in a course and are inspired to work hard in a class. Check out this video from José Antonio Bowen on How Student Thinking Works.
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Help students feel valued by being open-minded, enthusiastic, friendly, and knowing your students. Enthusiasm is especially relevant to student motivation – it's contagious!
- Inspire Interest in the Subject Matter
Consider the following suggestions to help inspire students’ interest in the subject matter of your course:
- Help students find personal meaning in the material through real-world problem-solving, personal reflection, applied learning, and/or a career-based case study.
- Identify assignments that require curiosity, challenge, or mastery.
- Use the NILOA Assignment Library to explore assignments by discipline, level, or proficiency.
- Avoid “busy work,” and seek assignments that students will see as valuable.
- Add a simple purpose statement to your assignment descriptions in your course syllabus.
- Show students how assignments align with course learning outcomes
- Give students as much control over their own education as possible (e.g., topics, projects, class structure, etc.)
- Build a library of additional resources. Professor, Adam Grant, talks about “compiling a library for students to follow-up and do a deeper dive into different areas of [his] class” (2022). Include TED talks, articles, case studies, etc. to help students uncover additional meaning.
- Use a variety of evidence-based teaching strategies to keep things interesting.
- Ensure Opportunities for Student Success
Consider the following suggestions to help ensure opportunities for student success:
- Give students opportunities for success early in the semester to give them confidence and avoid demoralizing feelings. Once students succeed, incrementally increase the difficulty level.
- Assign tasks that are realistic.
- Avoid grading on the curve, which gives all students the opportunity for high scores.
- Teach students effective learning strategies
- Consider sharing resources from Saundra McGuire, such as The Study Cycle
- Teach students about growth mindset and share your own struggles.
- Take the short mindset assessment to assess your assumptions about mindset.
- Consider sharing this video with your students: What is growth mindset?
- Encourage and reward peer tutoring
