D-widya's Learning Motivation

Motivating Students: Teaching Strategies for Student Learning

dskwidya — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 06:34:41 +0000

Teach Your Students More Effectively with These Motivation Techniques

Motivating students is a challenge all teachers face. Since every classroom consists of a wide array of students, each student brings with them different student learning styles, different interests, and different life experiences that make each classroom unique and special. There are several ways that teachers can tap into the individual learning styles and interests of students, thus making learning more fun and meaningful all at the same time. One excellent way to start is by having strong classroom management skills; you can refine your natural talents in this area by following the tips found in Take Back That Class.Here are some teaching ideas for how to motivate students:

Expectations. Teachers should set reasonable objectives for every lesson that allow their students to progress in the classroom. Expect students to achieve the objectives, and they will. Studies show that students achieve at higher rates when their teachers have high expectations for them.
Success. Motivate students by showing them that they can be successful in the classroom. Teachers can differentiate instruction to meet the students’ needs by adjusting the corresponding class work to the appropriate levels. Class work can be modified in a variety of ways: shortened assignments, extra response time, or enrichment activities.
Relevance. Show students how what they are learning matters in real life. This is one of the most effective motivation techniques, especially for older students, as it gives them meaning and purpose for their hard work. Guide students to discuss the new material, and allow students to draw on their own experiences to learn and understand the new material.
Engaging Questions. Lead in with questions that will get the students talking. Encourage students to discuss the topic by bringing what they know about the topic to the classroom discussion. Clarify any questions that arise by encouraging the students to talk to each other first and expand on their pre-existing knowledge.
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Incorporate different learning styles. Use a variety of teaching strategies in the classroom to facilitate the lesson. Classroom discussions consist of whole group learning. Cooperative group learning allows students to work together on assignments in small groups. Direct instruction allows teachers to model lesson assignments first so students can work independently at their desks.
Rewards and Privileges. Rewards and privileges are great motivational tools for hard work. Teachers can use a variety of them to encourage student motivation for participation. Examples of privileges or rewards are as follows: Lunch with the teacher allows students to come back to the classroom and eat lunch with the teacher. Extra center time allows students to have a few more minutes at a computer lab. Pizza parties or snacks can be offered as incentives. A token-based economy is a great reward system that lets students earn points or chips that can be cashed in for prizes, such as pencils or notepads. Motivating students with these methods is particularly effective for younger students.

There are lots of ways to motivate students. Most importantly teachers can show students that they can be great learners. By addressing the various needs of the students inside each classroom, students’ achievement levels will increase and so will their positive motivation.

Motivating Learners

dskwidya — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 06:04:40 +0000

The Rapid Elearning Blog

Motivate Your Learners with These 5 Simple Tips

There’s a good chance that if you neglect the information in this post you’ll lose your job. Want to know why?

You can present a lot of good information in your elearning courses, but you can’t really control whether or not a person learns from them. The learners own what they learn and much of it is determined by their level of motivation.

The good news is that while you can’t make a person learn, you can create an environment that is more conducive to learning. You do this by tapping into the learner’s motivation. Your job is to figure out what will motivate your learners and then use that angle to lure them into the course.

Typically, people are motivated when their learning has meaning. For example, if I know that passing a course will equate to an increase in my income, I am motivated to pass the course. The same can be said for being motivated by personal safety.

When I was in basic training at the beginning of my military service, I was given one opportunity to throw a live grenade. I was in Finance and normally they didn’t trust us with much more than a pencil. Before I got to throw the live grenade I had to go through a series of practice sessions and safety procedures. Considering the implications of making a mistake while throwing the grenade, you can be sure that I paid real close attention to what I was being taught.

The odds are that most of your elearning content doesn’t have life or death implications, so you have to be a little more creative at tapping into what will motivate those who take your elearning courses.

5 Ways to Motivate Your Learners

Reward Your Learners. People are motivated by rewards. Figure out what type of reward you can give the learners and then build that into the course. Sometimes the rewards can be timed challenges or reaching a certain level of achievement. Other rewards could be actual merchandise, like winning an iPod. It all depends on the course.

Rewards don’t have to be tangible items. They can be simple things like affirmation and encouragement. The main point is to connect with the learners and find a way to have them feel good about some sort of achievement in your course. Perhaps the reward is something as simple as being able to test out of the course.

Make Sure Your Course Has Real Value. Before your learners click on that first button, they want to know if the course has any value or benefit. The truth is that most people who take elearning courses don’t see the real benefit and because of that they either aren’t engaged with the course or they don’t complete it. If it happens to be a mandatory course, then they’re just trying to figure out how to click through it as fast as possible. That doesn’t have to be the case.

I used to work at an organization where any time we met with a certain executive, he’d ask about our company’s performance metrics or last quarter’s earnings report. He wanted to make sure we knew why we were working for him. Because he had this knack for putting you on the spot, you were more motivated to pay attention to the organization’s goals and performance.

In that case, each elearning course had meaning and implications to my job. This also had an additional benefit. Not only did I have a heighten sense of awareness to previously “boring” information, I always felt good (see the first point) when he called me out and I knew the answer.

Help Your Learners Perform Better. This ties into the previous point. Your course needs to have value and it needs to be relevant to what your learners do. People will be motivated to take your course and pay attention as they know it will help them perform better.

Your job is to connect the learner to the course content. If I’m taking a site safety course, I’m probably less motivated by clicking a button on a simple assessment than if I’m thrown into a real life scenario where I am challenged to work through some issues similar to what I’ll face at work. This type of approach connects me to the content, more so than screen after screen of bullet point information.

Set Clear Expectations for the Course. I’m amazed to see my children just click around on the computer screen to get what they want. On the other hand, I’ve watched adults fearful of clicking a next arrow not sure what will happen.

People tend to be leery of things they don’t understand, or if they’re not quite sure where they’re going. However, once they get a sense of what’s going on, they’re more apt to be responsive to the course.

If you want your learners motivated, then a good way to get them there is to let them know what to expect from the course that you want them to take. This all ties into the points above. You’re asking the learners to spend some of their valuable time going through your course. They expect clarity on what they’ll do, why, and what type of outcome to expect.

Along with clear expectations is to make sure that the learner knows how to navigate your course. I’m not saying that you have to create an addendum course on how to click the “next” button. Instead, what I’m saying is that you don’t want to create a frustrating learning experience because the learner doesn’t know what to do with the course or how to get through it. One of the best ways to de-motivate your learners is to make your course navigation so confusing that they just leave and never come back.

Tell Them They’re Wrong. Controversy gets our attention and is a good way to motivate. Challenge what a person believes, or even tell him he’s wrong, and you’ll see a person motivated to prove you wrong. Of course, this approach needs to be tempered with common sense.

However, there is a lot of value in challenging people and what they know. It’s just a matter of knowing how to do it in a manner that is appropriate. When a person is challenged it puts them at risk and they tend to pay more attention.

Create an environment where they can safely fail or make mistakes and you’ll challenge them and keep them engaged.

These are some basic tips and things to consider when building your courses. What you can do in your elearning courses to motivate your learners is dependent on the course and your resources. However, the main point is that you find the angle that works for your learners and the course you build, and then use it to engage your learner’s motivation. A motivated learner will learn.

Four Terrific Ways to Motivate Your English Language Learners to Speak in Class

dskwidya — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 05:57:10 +0000

Getting English Language Learners to Speak in Class

If the attitude of your English language learners is anything at all like mine, you need to provide some stimulation or motivation to get them to speak or give any extended oral discourse in English in class. Fear of peer criticism or fear of “making stupid mistakes” along with a decided lack of extensive speaking practice in English are three key factors which contribute to English learners’ reluctance to speak aloud in class. The same holds true with any other foreign language which the students might be learning. To help with this, I often assign or allow learners to prepare oral discourses using a number of different formats. This way, learners can get additional speaking practice using a format they feel more comfortable with.

Here Are Four Useful Speaking Practice Formats

The four most useful formats I’ve found to aid in motivating my EFL learners to speak in English class are the following:

1. Reciting Poetry

Learners of English or any other foreign language just love poetry in many of its forms. Even Rap is a rhyming, poetic form of sorts. Though you might not have a taste for the late Tupac Shakur you should be able to find something useful. Your learners can be of help with this too. Give them a selection of poets, rap artists, literary works from which to choose or allow them to come up with something on their own and it’s a sure hit.

2. Reading Aloud

Any prose text from an encyclopedia listing to an article excerpt could prove to be useful for reading aloud. A short passage from any favorite story, novel, article or other written form of authentic English will do just fine, especially if pre-selected by the learner. Remember, these need not be lengthy. An oral discourse or reading lasting not more than two to three minutes is more than enough to make a start.

3. Giving a Narrative

A speech excerpt, a newspaper piece, wholly or in part, an essay or review given as a narrative is frequently a good choice made by the learners. An oral discourse of as little as two or three minutes will often suffice for extensive English speaking practice. Treading should be done though, with gestures and expressiveness to highlight, emphasize and lend focus to key parts of the narrative.

4. Performing a Soliloquy

With access to a play, or a screen play from Shakespeare’s “To be or not to be, that is the question…” to contemporary works, even dialogue from popular movies will often spark interest in the learners to “perform” a speaking activity in front of the class. Scenes from the “Dirty Harry” film series are perennial favorites. But lots of other film scenes and many other film genres get equal time too.

A true plethora of ways exist to help motivate your English language learners to speak with more frequency and fluency in class. These four will get you started. We’ll be examining some additional options for motivating English or other foreign language learners to speak as we continue in this theme in upcoming articles.

Learning English Motivation

dskwidya — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 05:30:43 +0000

Home: How to learn English: Motivation: Improving your motivation for learning English

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Improving your motivation for learning English

In this article, we share our techniques for improving your motivation for learning English as a foreign language. We used them all the time when we were learning English and we still use them when we need to boost our motivation in areas other than English.

Imagine yourself in the future

Imagine you can talk to native speakers just like you talk in your first language. Imagine other people wanting to speak English as well as you do. Imagine the possibility of writing e-mail to people from all over the world.

It is helpful to read an article about the advantages of knowing English well. There are two such articles on Antimoon: Why learn English and English makes you feel good.

You should know that it is possible to learn English really well. Just look at other people who have done it.

Remember that you are already good

You already know some English (you’re reading an article in English right now). That’s a big success! Now it’s time for more successes. Time to start using powerful methods of effective learning. Time to gain an impressive knowledge of English.

Remember there is a lot that you don’t know

You are good, but your English probably isn’t perfect. You probably can’t understand English-language TV, read books in English, talk to native speakers easily, write letters without mistakes, etc.

You should never think your English is perfect. Even if you are the best student in your class, always try to find your weak areas and work on them. When you’ve learned to speak English well, your problems will be quite small: punctuation, rarely used grammar structures, rare words, understanding “street language”. Right now, your problems are probably more basic: mistakes in pronunciation, small vocabulary, grammar problems with the present perfect tense and conditional structures.

Use English whenever you can

Probably the most important way to improve your motivation is to use English.

Using English is fun. It is simply very enjoyable to use your English to read a good book, understand a song, watch an interesting movie, get an answer to a computer problem, exchange e-mails with a native speaker, etc. The more you use English, the more you will want to use it.

This is great, because using English is learning English. When you’re reading an interesting article or watching an exciting movie, you are using your English, but you are also learning new words and phrases. When you’re writing a message on an English-language discussion forum, you are using your English, but you are also practicing your writing.

But using English can also improve your general attitude to English and increase your motivation to study English in other ways. For example, if you see that your knowledge of English pronunciation helps you understand a movie or speak more clearly, you will be motivated to study pronunciation even more. If you see that checking your sentences in a search engine lets you write error-free e-mail messages, you will want to keep doing that. If you memorize some words with SuperMemo and later you come across them in a movie or an article, you will want to add even more things to SuperMemo.

Talk to people about English

This is a very simple method, but it is very effective. Here’s how it works:

You usually talk about things which interest you. But the opposite is true, too. If you start talking about a boring subject, you will begin to get interested in it.

Imagine you are studying a subject that you hate. You are bored and tired, but you have to pass the test tomorrow. If there are people near you, you have two options: you can tell everybody how much you are suffering or you can tell those people about the things you’ve learned. If you choose the first option, you will only feel worse.

If you choose the second option, and start a conversation on the “boring” subject, you will begin to look at it in a totally different way. Suddenly it will become a subject worth talking about — therefore, an interesting subject.

How can you begin such a conversation? If you’re studying English, you can surprise another person by talking to him/her in English. Say (in English): Hi, I’m studying English and I hate it. Or you can say (in your first language): Hey, I’ve learned 50 English words today. Do you know what’s the English word for …? If there are no people near you, you can telephone or send an e-mail message to your friend.

What will your friends say? Probably they won’t be very interested, but it doesn’t matter! The important thing is this: After talking about English, you will study it with more passion. Try it.

Find a friend who is learning English

If you can find a friend who is learning English and is on a similar level of skill, you will be in an excellent situation:

you will have someone to talk about English with. These conversations will increase your interest in English, as explained in the previous section.
learning English will be easier, because you will be able to discuss your problems with your friend.
you will study English more, because you will want to be better than your friend.

You should meet your friend regularly. Ideally, he/she should live near you, or go to the same school as you. If you absolutely can’t find anybody willing to learn English with you, you can try to find somebody by e-mail. This is a worse solution: your conversations will probably be less frequent, and it is difficult to compete with someone who you don’t know well.

Spend some money on learning English

If you spend your money on something, you will want to use it. For example, if you buy an expensive tennis racket, you will probably go out and play tennis every day.

This rule is also true for learning English. If you want to increase your desire to learn English, buy a new dictionary, an interesting English-language book, English-language cable TV, etc. The idea is simple: You paid for it, so you will want to use it, and you will improve your English.

There is a problem with this method. It only works for a short time. You usually lose your desire to learn English after a few days. To keep learning, you would have to buy something every week!

However, this method is helpful, because it gives you an impulse to start learning. For example, if you buy a dictionary of phrasal verbs, you will probably learn some words from it. Then you should try to use them. For example, write an e-mail message with these words. This will increase your motivation (as explained before), and you will learn more.

Read Unlimited Power by Anthony Robbins

Anthony Robbins’ book Unlimited Power: The New Science of Personal Achievement gives excellent advice on how to achieve any kind of goal. This book has changed the lives of many people, so you might want to take a look at it.

Remember that learning English requires action

We have said this many times. One small action is more powerful than reading hundreds of articles. Yes, we know it is very hard to do things, even if they are good for us. We humans are lazy creatures. That is why not many people speak English well.

Still, we hope you can do the things we talk about in our English learning method — not only read about them. You will be successful only if you change something about your life.

Five Top Tips to Build Your Motivation

dskwidya — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 05:18:37 +0000

When we are motivated we’re energetic, focused, and we get things done. Too many of us have ambitions we want to achieve but we wait for the motivation before we get going. The good news is that we can all learn practical actions to boost our motivation, keep it high, and so achieve our ambitions.

• Know what you want and why you want it.

You may know what you want; the pay rise, the new job, new staff, etc. but do you really know why you want them? Time spent deciding why you want the change will help you focus on precisely what you want and the more importantly what it will do for you. When you have identified what you want, and why you want it, write it down. When the going gets tough come back to these thoughts, remember what is in it for you, and get back on track.

• Nothing boosts our motivation like success!

When you plan how you will achieve your ambitions break it into manageable chunks and schedule in rewards after each stage. If your plan involves others remember to keep them informed of successes and congratulate them on their achievements. Remember, we all love rewards, bonuses and positive feedback.

• Be positive!

Speak positively about your plan to others and to yourself. If you are doing something you have never done before it is normal to be scared but fear is simply your mind telling you that you are stepping out of your comfort zone and it is not a reason to turn back. If you do what you have always done you will get what you have always got.

• Choose your confidants with care!

Unfortunately we all know people who are apathetic, negative, and over-critical. Do not let these people trample on your dreams or quash your enthusiasm. Talk to people who are interested in your plans, in your development, who support and encourage you through the tough moments and congratulate you when you do well. These positive people will occasionally point out pitfalls but they do this to help you avoid mistakes, not to hold you back. Find the positive people, support their ideas and ask for their support in yours. Bear in mind that without innovation we would have no wheel, and so no bike, car, train or plane!

• It’s all gone wrong!

Sometimes events will over take you, your plans have to go on a back burner for a while, you’re thrown off track and your motivation dips. Accept that this is normal and happens to us all. As soon as you’ve got your breathe back got back to your plan, change the actions or the timescales if need be, and swing back into action. Remember, you haven’t failed until you have given up trying to succeed.

Self Motivation

dskwidya — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 09:14:59 +0000

Everyone needs to motivate themselves in order to catch their dream. A great motivation will show a great success. However, nowadays the biggest problem is how to get a good motivation for ourselves. here they are some tips how to motivate yourselves

If you want to excel in life, self motivation is essential. You must know how to motivate yourself. You must be able to keep your spirit high no matter how discouraging a situation is. That’s the only way to get the power you need to overcome difficulties. Those who are discouraged in difficult times are certain to lose even before the battle is over.

The question is: how do you motivate yourself? Here are several tips I’ve found to be effective to build self motivation:

1. Have a cause

I can’t think of a more powerful source of motivation than a cause you care about. Such cause can inspire you to give your best even in the face of difficulties. It can make you do the seemingly impossible things.

While other causes could inspire you temporarily, a cause that matters to you can inspire you indefinitely. It’s a spring of motivation that will never dry. Whenever you think that you run out of motivation, you can always come to your cause to get a fresh dose of motivation.

2. Have a dream. A big dream.

Only as high as I reach can I grow, only as far as I seek can I go, only as deep as I look can I see, only as much as I dream can I be.
Karen Ravn

Your cause is a powerful source of motivation but it’s still abstract in nature. You need to make it concrete in the form of a dream. Imagine how the world will be in the future. Imagine how people will live and work.

Having a dream is important because it’s difficult to be motivated if you don’t have anything to shoot for. Just think about people who play basketball. Will they be motivated to play if there is no basket to aim at? I don’t think so. They need a goal. You need a goal. That’s what your dream is for.

But just having a dream is insufficient. Your dream must be big enough to inspire you. It must be realistic but challenging. It must stretch your ability beyond your comfort zone.

3. Be hungry

Wanting something is not enough. You must hunger for it. Your motivation must be absolutely compelling in order to overcome the obstacles that will invariably come your way.
Les Brown

To be truly motivated, you need to have hunger and not just desire. Having mere desire won’t take you through difficult times since you don’t want things badly enough. In many cases, hunger makes the difference between the best performers and the mediocre ones.

How can you have hunger? Your cause and your dream play a big role here. If you have a cause you care about and a big dream related to it, you should have the hunger inside of you. If you think that you are losing hunger, all you need to do is to connect again to your cause and dream. Let them inspire you and bring the hunger back.

4. Run your own race

I do not try to dance better than anyone else. I only try to dance better than myself.
Mikhail Baryshnikov

Comparing yourself with others is an effective way to demotivate yourself. Even if you start with enthusiasm, you will soon lose your energy when you compare yourself with others.

Don’t let that happen to you. You have your own race so how other people perform is irrelevant. Comparing yourself with others is like comparing the performance of a swimmer with a runner using the same time standard. They are different so how can you compare one with the other?

The only competitor you have is yourself. The only one you need to beat is you. Have you become the best you can be?

5. Take one more step

Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.
Winston Churchill

When you meet obstacles along the way, there could be the tendency to quit. You may think that it’s too difficult to move on. You may think that your dream is impossible to achieve. But this is where you can see the difference between winners and losers. Though both of them face the same difficulties, there is one thing that makes the winners different: the courage to continue.

In difficult situations, just focus on taking one more step forward. Don’t think about how to complete the race. Don’t think about how many more obstacles are waiting for you. Just focus on taking the next step.

6. Let go of the past

Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Believe it or not, one of the best demotivators is your past. Your past can drag you down before you realize it. Your past can give you a heavy burden on your shoulders.

The good news is it’s a burden you don’t have to carry. Take it off your shoulder and leave it. You might make mistakes in the past. You might disappoint others with what you did. But it’s over. It’s already in the past and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Today is a new day and you have the chance to start again. No matter how bad your past might be, you still have a bright future ahead waiting for you. Just don’t let the burden of the past stop you.

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Desak Widya

University student of Mahasaraswati University

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