Teaching Strategies to Teach the Not So Motivated Students

Motivating students who do not want to learn is a chronic serious problem for teachers everywhere.  It was a problem for me when I first started teaching but as I got more experienced, I was able to apply different strategies to help my students to learn.

Recently, a new teacher asked me to share some of the strategies I used in the past dealing with  unmotivated students. So here they are:

1. Know Your Students

One of the reasons Ontario does not have standard textbooks or standard lessons for elementary school teachers is the belief that our students are different culturally, geographically, economically and socially. Therefore, as a teacher, we must get to know our students and learn about their background and interests  so that we can plan our lessons and activities to which they can relate and are meaningful to them.

For instance,  if  students are from a seaside community then the teacher's lessons need to reflect their background and what they know. Consequently,  teachers cannot have one set of standard lessons for all their students regardless of their background.

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A teacher can learn about the students’ likes and interests by doing a student survey.

2. Topical/ thematic Unit of Study - To get the students interested in their lessons, I have found the topical/ thematic teaching method may work better for students who are less interested. For example, I may plan a unit of lessons if I know a lot of my students are from small farming communities e.g.  Life on a Farm – then all my teaching material, vocabulary, activities, pictures, resources would be dealing with farming or to do with farming. Learning about animals is also a popular topic among students.

2.     3.  Friendly competitions  among students is healthy – Divide students in groups according to their ability level and prepare different level of activities for each group. Reward the first group of students when they can follow instructions and work on their activities. The reward can be class time for some board games, time on computer and an occasional treat from the teacher .

4. Positive Peer Pressure - There has to be some students in a class who want to learn. Group these students together and have them work on activities to their level and reward these students. Reinforce good behaviour by paying attention to those who are doing well and are following teacher's instructions. Attention is a form of  reward for students. Hopefully, their positive attitude would start influencing the others.

3.     5. Student of the Week – I did reward students at the end of the week recognizing not just those who were the best but also those who have shown improvement. I made up a letter and sent it home to the parents informing them that their child was chosen as Student of the Week/ Month. Parents appreciated this kind of happy notes from me and students were motivated to work hard in order to bring this nice letter home. This system worked well for me and saved my neck in my first year teaching special education students.

      Instead of throwing their hands in the air and giving up, a good teacher committed to his/ her professions will try many different strategies to reach their students. Children naturally are curious to learn. But for various reasons, they many seem disinterested or unmotivated. It is the teacher's job to find out what will get their students excited about learning and from there plan lessons accordingly to meet the needs of the students.


T   R.T.
    Toronto
    Canada