Interact at the Center » Motivation

Learning Styles

ctl — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 14:42:31 +0000

It’s no secret that people learn in different ways. The key to success in teaching is realizing that people learn differently and finding ways to incorporate different learning styles into our classes. Recently, we held a workshop titled Pragmatic Practices for Teaching Assistants, Learning Styles that addressed how to assess learning styles and how to make our students aware of and responsible for their own learning styles.

In a paper titled Student Learning Styles and Their Implications for Teaching, authors Susan Montgomery and Linda Groat discuss the importance of recognizing learning styles and offered several different ways to assess these styles. Among the learning style models that they covered are the Myers-Briggs Model and the Kolb/McCarthy Learning Cycle. The authors also provide useful tips to engage students with different types of learning styles in your classes. These tips include using both group and independent work, requiring in-class presentations and providing less direction to students.

To read the rest of the article please click here.

How do you engage students in your classes that have different learning styles?

First Weeks of Class

ctl — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 18:16:53 +0000

As the semester is about to begin, it’s time to think about the most important day of the entire semester… the first day of class. The first day of class sets the tone for the entire semester. While most of us plan to simply go over the syllabus, there are other things that we can do to motivate our students. In “101 Things You Can do the First Three Weeks of Class,” the author Joyce T. Povlcs, offers helpful tips to make the first three weeks of class start off on the right foot. Among the tips offered are:

Give an assignment on the first day to be collected at the next meeting
Administer a learning style inventory to help students find out about themselves
Greet students at the door when they enter the classroom
Have students write out their expectations for the course and their own goals for learning

To read more helpful tips that can be utilized during the first three weeks of class, click here.

How do you set the tone for your classes on the first day of the semester?

Ten Easy Ways to Engage Your Students

garciav — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 14:58:52 +0000

Are you trying to find a way to make your classroom environment more engaging? In a College Teaching article, Tara Gray and Laura Madson provide the following 10 tips for engaging students:
Always
1. Maintain sustained eye contact.
2. Ask before you tell.
3. Create a structure for note taking.
4. Let the readings share your lectern.

Sometimes
5. Use the pause procedure.
Pause so that students can compare and discuss notes for 2 minutes.
6. Assign one-minute papers.
7. Try think-pair-share.

Hold Students Accountable Daily
8. Quiz daily.
9. Use clickers
10. Call on a student every 2-3 minutes.

This article provides great tips and give good examples on how to apply these techniques in your classroom.
Find the entire article through BGSU’s Library. Search for:
Gray, Tara and Laura Madson. “Ten Easy Ways to Engage Your Students.” College Teaching 25.2 (2007): 83-87.
How do you engage your students?

Motivating "These Kids Today" (Discussion/Workshop Extension)

ctl — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 15:24:00 +0000

On Tuesday, Dr. Jodi Haney presented a discussion session at the CTL entitled Motivating “These Kids Today” and challenged participants to consider their role in creating an environment that will encourage and foster students’ motivation to learn. The bottom line she stressed was that:

“faculty CANNOT motivate students, as motivation is a personal construct and can only come from within… we can only set the scene and create a motivating environment for learning.”

Student Motivation is defined as a “student’s willingness, need, desire and compulsion to participate in, and be successful in, the learning process” (Bomia et al., 1997, p. 1). This includes extrinsic motivation, where a student engages in learning “purely for the sake of attaining a reward or for avoiding some punishment and intrinsic motivation, when a student is motivated from within, actively engaging in learning out of curiosity, interest, or enjoyment, or in order to achieve their own intellectual and personal goals (Dev, 1997).

One analogy presented was:

To Catch a Cat…
A. Pull the cat out from under the couch
Vs.
B. Entice the cat by dangling a string
(p.s. – our students are the cats!)

STRATEGIES — Ideas that WORK!! (GENERAL)

Capitalize on students’ existing needs
Make students active participants in learning
Ask students to analyze what makes their classes more or less “motivating.”
Instructor’s enthusiasm
Relevance of the material
Organization of the course
Appropriate difficulty level of the material
Active involvement of students
Variety
Rapport between teacher and students
Use of appropriate, concrete, and understandable examples

Incorporating Faculty Behaviors:

Hold high but realistic expectations for your learners
Help learners set achievable goals for themselves
Tell learners what they need to do to succeed in your course
Strengthen learners’ sense of power (behavioral choices)
Avoid creating intense competition among learners
Be enthusiastic about your course
Take time to GET TO KNOW learners, talk to them, and express enjoyment in your interactions
Vary your teaching methods

Motivating Students to Do the Reading (some examples):

Assign the reading at least two sessions before it will be discussed
Assign study questions
If your class is small, have learners turn in brief notes on the day’s reading that they can use during exam (Jodi’s “C option”)
Ask learners to write a one-word journal or one- sentence journal summarizing the reading
Ask non-threatening questions about the reading (fishbowl)

In summary… Create an environment that provides learners with a SENSE OF:
* POWER – I have control over my learning.
* CONNECTEDNESS – I am a valued member of a learning community.
* MODELS – I can do this because my peers can do it.
* UNIQUENESS – I am an original learner.
(Stevenson, 1992; modified by Haney, 2007)

Dr. Haney encourages all of us (including herself) to focus on incorporating just one or two of these strategies during a semester, reflect on the change throughout, and continue to analyze and build upon them in the future.

What are strategies you use to create an environment where students are motivated to learn? Any other thoughts or comments on this issue?