Motivation in Math?

Motivation is one of the struggles I am facing while teaching. How do you get the students who hate math and think they aren’t good at it to pay attention and participate in class? I have one student Cory* who has said plenty of times that he doesn’t like math because he isn’t good at it. He won’t pay attention 80% of the time and he draws in his notebook or worse sleeps. When I wake him up or constantly try keep him focused on his work, he pays attention but doesn’t try to understand what we are learning and this shows on his tests. When I have one-on-one time with him and teach the lesson he understands it. But I can’t do this for every lesson! There isn’t enough time and it isn’t fair to the other students who pay attention and want to learn. I have talked with another teacher who says that when he takes Cory’s notebook away and says he can have it back after doing so much work, he pays attention. While doing the Tin Man Project, Cory was the most involved I have ever seen him. He wasn’t doing the math portion but he was measuring and doing the hands on activities. I have learned that I need to find hands on activities for him to be motivated to learn. This is sometimes hard and takes longer but I have to find a way to incorporate it in my class if I want him to pass. I also have found some things that interest him like games and World of Warcraft. So maybe if in incorporate students making an avatar or something he would be interested. I learned about a program called Voki over the summer in TPTE 586.

I subbed one day last week in the morning and taught Algebra I A (repeater Algebra). I have a student Carrie* that for some reason I think doesn’t like me. She will give me dirty looks and when I tried to explain how to do two-step equations she said I wasted her time and that was pointless because she wasn’t going to understand it. This class has 20+ students with large personalities and behavioral issues. That day my name was being called so many times to help students work problems. I noticed Carrie hadn’t begun working on her assignment out of the book. She had her head propped up by her hand and was staring off into space. She wouldn’t acknowledge or look at me when I said her name. I went and got a book for her and turned to the page she should begin working. I tried talking to her from the side so I wouldn’t be confronting her face on. She still wouldn’t talk, look at me, or acknowledge that I was even talking to her. At that point I was the only teacher in the room and had to turn my focus to the other students calling my name. I had no idea on how to motivate her to do her work. I couldn’t turn to my mentor because she was out of school that day. I’m pretty sure that she just had a horrible morning or something because she usually doesn’t act that way.

These are the two types of student motivation I have been dealing with. Students who don’t pay attention and want to do their work and students who have had something occur in their life that effects their motivation that day. I’m in a Title I school which means most of the students have free/reduced lunch. I know there are probably more important things going on in their lives that make them not want to focus on math at 8:30 in the morning. It’s hard to get ever single student motivated to want to learn a much disliked subject but my job as a teacher is to find something that does. I am going to focus on finding:
1. what interests students
2. ways that relates what we are learning to something beneficial or has a real world application

3. creative ways to teach rather than worksheets

Any Ideas?

*Names have been changed