M OTIVATING L EARNERS Tracy Hanzal

P SYCHOLOGISTS IDENTIFY TWO TYPES OF MOTIVATION when someone wants you to do something when you want to do something Extrinsic Motivation Intrinsic Motivation Motivating children [image]. Retrieved March 6, 2011 from learning-preferences

E XTRINSIC M OTIVATION Teachers can: use rewards to achieve target behavior influence motivation to succeed through: Behavior (delivery) Statements (encouragement) identify learning preferences and find ways to motivate individual students

I NTRINSIC M OTIVATION Parents and Teachers can use encouraging statements that reflect honest evaluation by: Recognizing accomplishments Attributing achievement to internal factors Providing feedback about strategies and how to improve them Helping set realistic goals Refrain from ability grouping Ability grouping gives message that ability is more important than effort

L EARNING IS A SKILL AND REQUIRES OPPORTUNITIES TO LEARN Increase classroom learning timeGive tasks consistent with what they already knowGive more time to understand new informationHelp engage in active thinking and monitoring of own learningGive access to books to promote reading at homeCommunicate learning preferences and motivation with parents

R ECOMMENDATIONS FOR D EVELOPMENT Children learn in many different ways. Teachers have the ability and opportunity to create the best learning environment for the development of children, and recognize individual learning preferences.

T HE M ANY R ESPONSIBILITIES OF T EACHERS Have the ability to identify how students learn Be able to teach in many strategies to accommodate the many learning preferences of students Determine what motivates each student Provide more learning opportunities so students can improve the skill of learning Continue professional development in teaching strategies and content knowledge Create communication with parents and community to inform and promote learning and motivation for each student

The recommendations listed in this article are excellent ways to motivate students and create a positive learning environment for them. I think that intrinsic motivation is not used nearly enough and we as educators can get more out of students if we do use it more often. Intrinsic motivation is a challenging exercise, which makes an important piece of this article even more vital: “Parents and teachers should make use of encouraging statements that reflect an honest evaluation of learner performance.” I want to emphasize that Tenedero (2009) writes parents and teachers need to be involved. I am a strong believer that parents have a large impact on how a student will perform at school. I appreciated the many ideas shared in this article and am pleased to see how challenging and rewarding our profession is. Thank you.

Works Cited Tenedero, Henry S (2009). Motivating children through their learning preferences. The Manila Bulletin Newspaper. Retrieved March 6, 2011 from / motivating-children-through-their-learning-preferences.