MOTIVATING LEARNERSTracy Hanzal

PSYCHOLOGISTS IDENTIFY TWO TYPES OF MOTIVATION

when someone wants you to do something

when you want to do something

Extrinsic Motivation

Intrinsic Motivation

Motivating children [image]. Retrieved March 6, 2011 from http://www.mb.com.ph/articles/204131/motivating-children-through-their-learning-preferences

EXTRINSIC MOTIVATION

Teachers can: use rewards to achieve target

behavior influence motivation to

succeed through: Behavior (delivery) Statements (encouragement)

identify learning preferences and find ways to motivate individual students

INTRINSIC MOTIVATION

Parents and Teachers can use encouraging statements that reflect honest evaluation by: Recognizing accomplishments Attributing achievement to internal factors Providing feedback about strategies and how to

improve them Helping set realistic goals Refrain from ability grouping

Ability grouping gives message that ability is more important than effort

LEARNING IS A SKILL AND REQUIRES OPPORTUNITIES TO LEARN

Increase classroom learning time

Give tasks consistent with what they already know

Give more time to understand new information

Help engage in active thinking and monitoring of own learning

Give access to books to promote reading at home

Communicate learning preferences and motivation with parents

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Children learn in many different ways. Teachers have the ability and opportunity to create the best learning environment for the development of children, and recognize individual learning preferences.

Learn to assess knowledge,

strategies, and modes of learning

Introduce a variety of materials,

activites and strategies

Guide and challenge

students’ thinking and learning

Encourage students to

examine in a variety of ways

Introduce problems and

materials drawn from everyday

situations

Show students to use their own

thinking skills to solve problems

Create situations for students to

interact with the community

THE MANY RESPONSIBILITIES OF TEACHERS

Have the ability to identify how students learn

Be able to teach in many strategies to accommodate the many learning preferences of students

Determine what motivates each student Provide more learning opportunities so

students can improve the skill of learning Continue professional development in

teaching strategies and content knowledge Create communication with parents and

community to inform and promote learning and motivation for each student

The recommendations listed in this article are excellent ways to motivate students and create a positive learning environment for them. I think that intrinsic motivation is not used nearly enough and we as educators can get more out of students if we do use it more often. Intrinsic motivation is a challenging exercise, which makes an important piece of this article even more vital:

“Parents and teachers should make use of encouraging statements that reflect an honest evaluation of learner performance.”I want to emphasize that Tenedero (2009) writes parents and teachers need to be involved. I am a strong believer that parents have a large impact on how a student will perform at school. I appreciated the many ideas shared in this article and am pleased to see how challenging and rewarding our profession is. Thank you.

Works Cited

Tenedero, Henry S (2009). Motivating children through their learning preferences. The Manila Bulletin Newspaper. Retrieved March 6, 2011 from http://www.mb.com.ph/articles/ 204131/ motivating-children-through-their-learning-preferences.