Characteristics of 21st Century Teachers: How Do I Keep the Students Motivated?

One of the biggest challenges teachers face is keeping their students motivated. I personally teach my students two hours and forty-five minutes a day for one hundred eighty-two days a year, over the course of three years. That is over ninety thousand hours I spend with the same students. There is no way I could ever imagine that I would be able to keep each student engaged and motivated if I was standing in the front of my classroom lecturing. For this reason, I believe the most successful strategy I have deployed is allowing my students to personalize their learning, take risks, and learn from their mistakes.

Students typically enter your classroom with a plethora of educational experiences and their own learning style, regardless if they have been identified with a learning disability or not. By the time they get to my classroom, they have had nine years of other adults telling them how to learn, what to study, and how to be successful. The major concern is that each of their previous teachers had their own philosophy of teaching. The students end up dissecting each teacher to determine their strengths and weaknesses; the manipulation to pass the class, if you will. However, I believe it is more important for the students to determine their own strategies and methods to be successful, and not rely on the teachers’ methods. Now you may be scratching your head in wonder, but believe me, this works!

The first thing you need to do is get the students to understand the value of a good education. They need to understand why the material you are going to teach them is important to their future. In addition, they need to see it placed in context in order for them to reach mastery. This can often be accomplished by providing the students a back to front model of instruction. For me, I show the students a predecessor’s portfolio and we discuss the skills and knowledge required to produce the product. This provides the students an end to a means. Too often, this is difficult in academic courses, unless the teacher can again contextualize their course work. For instance, a math teacher can show students a model house that was built and challenge them to use math concepts to create it.

In order to deploy project based learning, you will need to individualize instruction, as students will be learning at a different pace. Because they will be working independently, you will need to cultivate an environment where students are willing to take risks and not fear failure. As students move from consumers of information to producers of products, they need to develop the desire to try. And the teacher needs to be there to facilitate their leaning. Therefore, when students make mistakes, we can’t criticize them for failing, but should provide the motivation to keep going. Think of an automobile engineer. How many times do you think they blew up an engine before they knew just how far they could push it? Now at some point the students need to produce a product that works, but they will be more willing to try if they are provided the opportunity.

In conclusion, the most important things you can do to keep students motivated are to personalize their learning and give them the opportunity to make mistakes. Too often, teachers are fearful of deploying a new strategy or piece of technology before they have mastered it. However, this often leads to delaying the inevitable. Making mistakes is part of learning, even for the teacher. Just go for it and get your students involved. What better way for students to learn how to try than witnessing it firsthand as you attempt something new?