Standard 5: Classroom Motivation
Classroom motivation is critical when teaching. This is a poster I made in my Curriculum and Instruction class senior year. I learned in that class classroom motivation and management skills take way in many forms.
This poster shows a few different ways to help manage your classroom. These ways are verbal and nonverbal actions. The first way, which I use a lot during every lesson, is eye contact! A stern look can make a student stop shuffling around papers or wiggling around and pay attention. The second way is just by pacing around the room. This way, all the students feel connected, and it’s less likely that a child will act out, because as you are pacing around the room, you are keeping an eye out for every student. If a child is having a hard time behaving, and you’ve tried ‘the look’ , and pacing, and it’s just not working, it might be time to go over to the student and actually ask them to please stop and pay attention. The last, and final resort should be stopping the entire class and asking the students to pay attention and behave better.
There are many different strategies I can use to help me manage my classroom. It’s important I am aware of what is happening in my classroom, so I can deal with issues before they actually become problems. I want to handle these situations with care and think on my feet. During my internship year, I saw how I use every aspect on this poster to help my students stay motivated and engaged within my classroom.
Another way I motivate students is by helping them understand how what we are learning in the classroom transfers into real life. For example, we were reading a story in Open Court Reading about a young boy who immigrated from Puerto Rico to the United States in my fifth grade ALP classroom during my internship year. I saw how my students were just reading the story, without knowing how it applied to them in real life. I came up with a great idea! I wanted to motivate my students' learning and show them how this isn't just a story in a book, but there are people like this young boy coming to America all the time. I went to my college and asked if a few international students would come to my classroom and talk about their journey to America and their struggles. I got permission from my principal and also had my students write their questions down that they wanted to ask our guest speakers. The students were so excited to ask the guest speakers their question and then relate it back to their reading.
The students couldn't believe the cultural differences and that the world was so different in another country/part of the world. It was, truly, an eye-opening experience. This was the first time a lot of them heard and saw Arabic. The guest speakers spoke Arabic and wrote some of their names in Arabic; it seemed my students became more and more engaged in learning about other cultures and immigrants.
The students couldn't stop talking about the guest speakers after. Experiencing something tangible, with the story we were reading, seemed to open their eyes to becoming more motivated to read and think about what they read and how it might apply to their own lives.
This poster shows a few different ways to help manage your classroom. These ways are verbal and nonverbal actions. The first way, which I use a lot during every lesson, is eye contact! A stern look can make a student stop shuffling around papers or wiggling around and pay attention. The second way is just by pacing around the room. This way, all the students feel connected, and it’s less likely that a child will act out, because as you are pacing around the room, you are keeping an eye out for every student. If a child is having a hard time behaving, and you’ve tried ‘the look’ , and pacing, and it’s just not working, it might be time to go over to the student and actually ask them to please stop and pay attention. The last, and final resort should be stopping the entire class and asking the students to pay attention and behave better.
There are many different strategies I can use to help me manage my classroom. It’s important I am aware of what is happening in my classroom, so I can deal with issues before they actually become problems. I want to handle these situations with care and think on my feet. During my internship year, I saw how I use every aspect on this poster to help my students stay motivated and engaged within my classroom.
Another way I motivate students is by helping them understand how what we are learning in the classroom transfers into real life. For example, we were reading a story in Open Court Reading about a young boy who immigrated from Puerto Rico to the United States in my fifth grade ALP classroom during my internship year. I saw how my students were just reading the story, without knowing how it applied to them in real life. I came up with a great idea! I wanted to motivate my students' learning and show them how this isn't just a story in a book, but there are people like this young boy coming to America all the time. I went to my college and asked if a few international students would come to my classroom and talk about their journey to America and their struggles. I got permission from my principal and also had my students write their questions down that they wanted to ask our guest speakers. The students were so excited to ask the guest speakers their question and then relate it back to their reading.
The students couldn't believe the cultural differences and that the world was so different in another country/part of the world. It was, truly, an eye-opening experience. This was the first time a lot of them heard and saw Arabic. The guest speakers spoke Arabic and wrote some of their names in Arabic; it seemed my students became more and more engaged in learning about other cultures and immigrants.
The students couldn't stop talking about the guest speakers after. Experiencing something tangible, with the story we were reading, seemed to open their eyes to becoming more motivated to read and think about what they read and how it might apply to their own lives.