Student Motivation Essay

“Students are motivated when they believe they are able to succeed at a given task and when they understand and value the outcome of the task” - Paula Wise

Educators have one of the most challenging professions in the world. They are called upon to teach and engage students on a daily basis to not just learn but to understand several different concepts. In a classroom of twenty plus students, there might be a small handful of students that are actually motivated to learning. The bulk of the students show signs of motivation throughout the day, and then another small group proves to be a struggle to even motivate them to write their name and student number on the top of their paper. According to Ormrod (2016), motivation is an internal

Brozo and Flynt (2008) suggest that collaboration for student motivation is the result social networking that takes place for the purpose of supporting students’ literacy and learning (p. 173). Student motivation tends to rapidly increase when teachers prove to be allies in their student’s learning process (Guthrie, 2008 as cited in Brozo & Flynt, 2008 p. 173). Pressley, Mohan, Raphael, & Fingeret, (2007) conducted a study of Bennett Woods Elementary School, which is known for producing a reading and writing rich environment with demanding instruction (p. 221), where students and teachers were interviewed to determine the daily instruction processes within each classroom. The results provided insight into a strong student teacher bond. Every teacher at Bennett Woods Elementary expressed extremely confidence that their students were going to pass statewide assessments simply because they were thoroughly prepared for each assessment. Prior assessments were studied and used to prepare their students for upcoming assessments and benchmarks (p. 227). Once students are given adequate tools, which is also backed by the confidence of their teacher, assessments don’t seem so daunting and scary. Doing well and having the ability to see one’s academic is often motivation in and of

32). The students are then able to visually keep up with their results and progress over a short or long period of time, which is then used as a motivational, visual tool. Not only does self-graphing aide in improving positive academic behaviors and habits, it also is, a contributing force for motivating students to improve due to the visual stimulus the graphing provides (p. 32). All of the student’s progression is laid out for them in one place, whether it is on a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet or a simple bar graph they draw themselves. Self-graphing is a great way to promote an increase is wanting to do better particularly in reading and writing. Teachers and students are also able to sit together and decided which graph would be best to satisfy the greatest amount of motivation. According to Hirsch, Ennis, and McDaniel (2013), self-graphing allows for flexibility in the since that if a student does not make their goal one week, they still have the option to make it the following week (p. 33). Hirsch et. al. (2013), suggest that setting up long term reading goals on a graph allows the students to visualize where they need to be at a specific time frame, providing motivation in a visual way (p. 33). If a child seems to struggle with behavior choices, self-graphing is a positive way to provide a visual