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
