Christenson

Motivational Plan

Intrinsic motivation is the best tool we can teach our children to have. An easy way to

find out what students believe motivates them is to task. You can collect their ideas for future

motivational needs. Encourage them to choose what makes them do it for themselves, not to

please their parents, coach, etc. The class can discuss their ideas together, which can give

other students some more ideas of things they may not have thought about. To get them

thinking I can share what makes me passionate about teaching, or things I’m passionate about

that don’t have a monetary reward system. I don’t teach for the salary, I teach because I love

when kids learn. I trained service dogs because I loved giving someone their freedom, we didn’t

get paid for that.

When doing lessons you can encourage creative ways to accomplish the same task.

Science and math are good places to start because there can be several different ways to do

the same thing. In science the class can be split into groups and given tasks with very minimal

directions but one end goal in mind. It gives kids the freedom to think for themselves, but they

also have to cooperate with each other and stay motivated for their team. You can also make a

lesson more personal by using examples from kids in class, or something that incorporates

students lives and interests. It’s much easier to relate and be motivated to do something if it’s

known that other kids your age have experienced the same thing, or are learning the same

things.

Setting goals that are attainable but have a delayed gratification shows kids that

sometimes goals take time and not to give in as soon as it gets tough. This is where class goals

can be beneficial and it’s a good opportunity to have a class wide visual aid set up in class to

keep the kids motivated. At an individual level students can also be taught to compete against

themselves to raise scores and get work done. As a class it should be encouraged to share your

failures and how you fixed them. People are more motivated watching someone fail and try

again than they are watching someone succeed over and over without trying.
 Christenson

Individually I want to teach students how to trust that they will succeed, and make every

student feel capable in their abilities. I don’t want to use fear to scare children into doing what

they’re supposed to be doing, I want to show them how good it feels to finish things simply for

the satisfaction of getting it done. One way to avoid children shutting down when they don’t

succeed is to teach them how to receive criticism and how to not take it personally. We need

criticism in order to do better next time, that has nothing to do with them as a person.