My Philosophy Of Motivating Students

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Motivating students has been a lot of trial and error when it comes to the methods I have used in my teaching career. Rather than run down the litany of methods, where I really need to start is my philosophy of motivating students in the classroom. There are two camps of students: those who respond to external motivation and those who do not. My philosophy for motivating students is that I need to get them to see that education (school) is valuable. Extrinsic systems for motivation work for students who care but just need a little push back on the road to academic success. For the student who is in the academic ravine, it is not so easy. For these students, extrinsic systems do not work. I do think it is imperative to research the road that led these students to the ravine because that is where I try to start building the bridge back to the main road of education for them, Ultimately, motivation has to come from within. …show more content…
A lot of the students I work with in the ‘don’t care’ category have not had a positive experience in school. Starting with PBIS, helps to create an environment where they can start to feel that school isn’t a bad place for them. I catch them being good for anything at all (recycling, closing the door) and every day greet them with a good morning/afternoon and a smile (no matter how bad my day is going or how busy I am). At the end of the school day, I will often shoot off an email to the student’s parent or guardian about what great thing they did that day and how pleased I was with that. This has proven to be the most impactful thing I can do for a student to help turn him/her

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