The Importance Of Motivation In The Classroom

Motivation could be defined as a level of effort a person is willing to exert in order to attain a certain goal (Brennen, n.d.). Therefore, internally, a student has to want to work. Motivation is a life skill students are obliged to have to be productive, self-sustaining members of society. It is a responsibility of the schools and teachers to foster this characteristic by creating an environment that boosts each student’s motivation to learn. The differences among the classroom population could make it difficult for teachers to accommodate each person who walks through the door. Nonetheless, there is an assortment of techniques classroom educators could employ to persuade students to aspire to learn.
According to Steven Reiss’s theory

In my class, half of the room contains student desks and the other half of the room contain lab tables and stools. There is an unwritten rule in the classroom that the lab tables are reserved for labs or any teacher requested work time for students. Students do not sit at the lab pods “just because”. This method of structure helps me to keep track of who is where in the learning process. Students at the lab pod signify they were working on the collaborative activity for the day. Those students seated at a desk are still working on the classwork of the day. For one unit, I allowed students to choose where they felt most comfortable sitting when direct instruction concluded. To maintain track of where the students, I would ask for a show of hands of who had completed a certain percentage of an assignment. Due to the nature of science, the ability to sit at a table and collaborate with peers proved to increase engagement among the pupils in the class. Still, those students who worked best alone, did so. Each student had the opportunity to move around the room as needed to space themselves closer or further from their peers in order to achieve the learning environment that worked best for