Is it hard to motivate?

Motivation and Managing Students for Effective Learning

The third year of study time has come. The first assignment has accosted me in the first week of the fifth semester. Well, no more complain because I do realize that assignment will be my endless partner in my university life. In this semester, I have to learn about “Motivation and Managing Students for Effective Learning”. Based on the name of the course, I do guessing about what I will learn through this semester. In my opinion before attending the class, this course will discuss about on how we can create effective learning for the students through motivating and managing them so the maximum potential of each students can be achieved.

We will see whether the guessing I did is true or false. When I heard the course objective which had been read by lecturer, I found out that there were more than only motivated and managed the students during their study process. We have to know on how we do it, and try to get to know our students well, and then identify what kind of students they are. If we know those things so it will be a little bit easier to create the effective learning. This course will be more interesting because I will learn how to create the effective learning through some theories then try to find the strategies and approaches to do it.

The effective learning can be created if the parties who are involved in the classroom can support each others. There are teacher and students who will have interaction in the classroom. Therefore, each of them should know how to act. A teacher will be the one who will guide the students to achieve the objective learning. It is expected that students will get something more than only just lesson in the classroom. The teacher should be able to motivate the students when they are in the critical condition like do not have passion to study. The teacher should be able to manage the classroom so positive environment can be there.

Basically, the teacher will be assigned as a model and the people who know everything in the classroom so the students will rely on the teacher.  So if the teacher could guide the students well in exploring the journey of life, it will be great for the students in stepping the next level of life. If the teacher can take heart of each student it will be easier to direct the students to get better future. When I was asked, what kind of teacher do you like? I will answer the inspiring teacher because that teacher will give me not only the lesson but also the value of life. Therefore, I was most motivated when I have the inspiring teachers who can show me the right path of life. I was unmotivated when I got nothing from the lesson I joined. This will be the great challenges for the educators in the 21st century on how we can inspire our students.

It will be the duty of the teachers to motivate the students so the students can have passion to study because they are motivated. From my personal opinion, motivation is simply the desire of the people to do something they want because when they can get what they want, satisfaction will come to them. I have learnt about theoretical views of motivation through group discussion. These theoretical views have broadened my knowledge about what the motivation actually is. I hope what I learnt in the college can be applied in the real situation in the future. Over all, this course is nice and I will put more attention into this course because this will increase my skill in being a teacher. 

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How to create 4 climate variables in the classroom?

Climate Variables

In the previous meeting, I did the enrichment on how I can create the positive environment in the classroom so the students will have high motivation towards the subject I teach. I learnt some new things to build the constructive classroom. To create that way, it will need the actors of classroom, those are teacher and the students. There are 4 variables that can create the positive environment: Order and Safe, Success, Challenge and Task Comprehension. Here, I try to explain those variables as follow.

Order and Safe

Order and safe relate to the students’ autonomy in the classroom. Let them to be independent learners in the classroom and we as a teacher can guide the students to reach the goals. We need to create the safety of the students so they can feel secure in exploring their journey in the classroom. We also need to engage the students in making regulation in the classroom, what do’s and don’ts. Beside of that, the involvement of the students are considered as important one to design what task they want and the teacher should accommodate the students’ request. When I was in senior high school I often got threat from my teacher so I felt insecure and in the end it made me uncomfortable enough to join the class and I did not learn maximally in the class. We have to create the positive environment of learning so the students can reach the maximum level of learning.

Success

The teacher needs to help the students to achieve the goals of the learning. The process to get success means big for the improvement of the students. The students need the guidance of the teacher in the process of achieving what we call as the objectives. Sometimes, the students will get difficulties and we as a teacher are suggested to scaffold them so they can reach the objectives of learning. We cannot judge the students by looking at the score they had but we have to see more on how the progress they made. For the example, when they can improve their skill and ability in solving the problems, we can see that as success because there is improvement that has been made by the students. Once more, do not look at the score they had but appreciate on the effort they made to be better than before.

In the School Experience program I observed my master teacher when teaching the students. My master teacher still has paradigm that the students’ success is the core and grade that students produce when they had a test or assignment. My master teacher would only appreciate the students who have high score and ignored them who got lower score. I think it was wrong because the teacher did not appreciate the students who put more effort to make improvement. It would lead the students to have negative attitude towards learning.

Challenge

The teacher needs to give challenging task to the students because it can increase the students’ perceptions towards their ability and skill in accomplishing the task. We should not give the students the difficult task but it is enough with challenging task but we need to scaffold them in accomplishing the task. The teacher should not reduce the standard of the task if the students said that it is too difficult to do for them, the teacher just need to scaffold them.

Task Comprehension

This variable will underline more on how the students could have awareness to do the task. They should know why they need to do the task and what they will get if they can accomplish the task. If the students can have that awareness so they can learn how to be effective learners. Teacher should create the meaningful learning so the students can value their learning in the classroom.

In addition, I also learnt about the TARGET program. There are six TARGET programs that can be applied in the classroom: Task, Authority, recognition, grouping, Evaluation, and Time.

I hope I can create the four climate variables in my classroom so I can explore the journey of learning with my students effectively. It can make feel a real teacher if I can create those climate variables.