Student Motivation

Some students study because they do well with their marks or because they like learning. Many more become cynical about the value of education. How do we help them?

An advisor should not give direct advice. The advisor instead offers open or multi-choice problems for others, interested parties, students, sons or daughters, to solve. Then they have a say in what to do. No one likes to be told.

Here are a few questions or problems for your teen to consider.

D What to do in School and Why
E. How to Study Mathematics

While some teenagers may skip the terrible teens and remain polite and serious, the terrible teens arrive sooner or later for most. During that period parents can do no right. And during that period if not before, school may become less attractive. Elementary students may be motivated by the notion that school attendance helps them grow-up or mature, but after several years of schooling from ages 6 to 13 say, school loses it appeal. It is compulsory, parent and teachers may not be say clearly why school is necessary except for bureaucratic need for a high school graduation as a ticket to further studies if not employment.

Compulsory instructions may seem pointless for some students. The question of why go or why stay does not have a clear nor immediate answer. The reward if any lies in the future.

One way to motivate students is to say that studying is a job and to support that view with pay or pocket money for performance and attitude. That is, students could be given an immediate reward for their effort. (As an instructor, I would not object to informing students that their pay in my class depends on their work habits and work presentation - In the presence of a demanding and rigourous curriculum, students may not see point of the long preparation. Some way to get students to behave in class with motivation would be welcome.

My subject properly taught can be rather dry despite efforts on my part to lighten the subject and provide a context for it. Kid who lack motivation slow learning for themselves and will sooner or later not cooperate in their own education,. and may even rebel.

Students in the past and today have been expected to bring their own motivation. That motivation may be inherited from parents. Students with motivation, regardless of source, will go further than students with out. The will to learn is important.

Teachers and school may provide encouragement. Instruction in not leading to definite ends, but in leading to general ends cannot say to a student in concrete terms why he or she should work at their studies and take those studies seriously. General statements of the importance of education may lack specifics. So education itself may mean following a dream or path with no definite aims nor ends. And in those circumstances, loss of interest in school may be a sign of intelligence. Parents and Course Designers need to consider the question of leadership, the question of how to provide motivation for learning.

Attempt to provide motivation are provided by the appendices in site volume three skills for algebra on what to do in school and why, and on how to study mathematics and why. Besides those appendices, parents may give their teens and younger charges a message, namely that mastery of logic and arithmetic (fraction sense) is provides the intelligence needed to follow multi-step methods in many arts and disciplines at school, home and work. The knowledge that an error in one step makes all that follow wrong or likely to be wrong is a sign of intelligence and application provided by the mastery of logic and arithmetic.

Taken from : http://whyslopes.com/ParentCenter/Student_motivation.html