Motivating Students Who Don't Care

April 20, 2020 written by PDC

Motivating students who don’t care is one of the biggest problems faced by today’s educators, but it doesn’t have to be an uphill battle. When students show little interest in their subjects, they cannot lay the foundations they need to progress. This lack of engagement can dramatically impact their futures in many ways. Therefore, it is vital teachers understand the concept of motivation in order to keep those students fully engaged! With the right tools, attitude, and models, teachers can reach even the most difficult student.

Motivating Students Who Don’t Care

Understanding Motivation

Fostering motivation in class environments is the key to successful student learning. However, motivation is not a one-size-fits-all psychological concept. For starters, there are different kinds of motivation, such as intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation is an internal urge to obtain something for one’s desires. Feeling hungry is one of the most common biological examples of intrinsic motivation, to find food and satisfy that hunger. Conversely, extrinsic motivation relates to behavior to please others and to be rewarded (or to avoid disciplinary action). To recognize which techniques and instructional strategies teachers should use, and when to use them, it is critical to get to the core of motivational difficulties.

Why Motivation Matters in Our Classrooms

Every student who struggles to stay focused in class faces unique barriers. Often, these are complex emotional disabilities, which is why teachers need to learn about the role that emotion plays in motivation. Though K-12 teachers are not student therapists, it is very beneficial to be able to assess personal hurdles that learners are confronting. This can hold especially true in highly diverse settings, where students may come from a mix of backgrounds. Multiple factors affect student self-attributes and can cause them to experience very different perceptions of the world. Sometimes being able to put oneself in their shoes can help with the discovery process as teachers look for those underlying issues that are obstructing the motivation to learn.

For instance, a student may face a less-than-optimal home environment, which skews their perception of the world in general. They could seem less enthusiastic about learning a topic only because other matters taking place in their lives are troubling them. Or perhaps they’re dealing with shyness or anxiety issues which affect their positive self-esteem or make them feel uncomfortable participating in class. Sometimes these issues may, on the surface, make students appear as if they do not care when, in fact, they are just overburdened.

In other cases, apathy can boil down to language barriers, where students may feel undue pressure if English is not their primary language. In such situations, the issue can be with their reluctance to communicate openly to avoid making grammar mistakes.

It’s also not uncommon for particular students to experience boredom in class when they are not sufficiently challenged and are academically ready for more advanced work. Moreover, one common issue facing nearly all modern classrooms is the lure of electronic distractions. Today’s K-12 students have grown up in a connected world, thanks to the Internet and mobile devices. All too often, teachers find students are addicted to electronics and have not developed the attention spans necessary to participate in traditional lessons. Identifying and understanding these barriers allows teachers to answer the question of why motivation matters in K-12 classrooms, and it will enable them to develop the motivational tools necessary to reach this diverse group of students.

Benefits of Taking Motivating Students Who Don’t Care from Professional Development Courses at the University of Laverne

While there may be obstacles to student motivation and learning, teachers do not have to figure out all the solutions on their own. Professional Development Courses at the University of LaVerne offers the course Motivating Students Who Don’t Care, which provides a variety of tools that can immediately get students on-board and involved with their educational process.

This easy-to-follow course was created specifically for K-12 teachers, with straightforward content that does not require special computer skills. Content is self-paced and easily accessible online, and books are mailed to students at no cost. Support is always standing by if assistance is needed.

Successful completion of this course will not only greatly benefit your students, but it can have a positive impact on your career. All of the courses offered at Professional Development Courses at the University of LaVerne help working education professionals leverage their new skills towards salary advancement, license renewal, or recertification. Each district and state has its own policies regarding course approval. Before enrolling in a course, check with your school district or department of education.

Motivating Students Who Don’t Care can also be applied towards Professional Development Courses at the University of La Verne’s 15-credit Motivation and Classroom Management certificate.

With so many reasons to sign up, it is time to take a look at what you will be learning!

Objectives for Motivating Students Who Don’t Care

In the Motivating Students Who Don’t Care course, you will learn:

Definitions of the different types of motivation, including Intrinsic and Extrinsic motivation
How brain functioning relates to and affects motivation
The role of emotion in motivation
How to assess various types of student emotional disabilities
How to develop instructional strategies for diverse student populations
Invaluable techniques for instilling intrinsic motivation in students
How to develop feasible working plans for motivating students to learn and complete tasks

You will also learn about:

When and how to incorporate rewards and celebrations
The self-system—what it is and how it works
Metacognitive and cognitive systems
Self-attributes and their role in student learning
Awareness of unique student perceptions of their surrounding environments
How climate affects motivation
The importance of efficacy
Handling minor off-task behavior
Models to use when developing classroom motivation
Understanding different learning states and discipline issues

How to Register

The Motivating Students Who Don’t Care course offers so many tangible benefits that you are probably getting eager to learn about registration. The good news is that all of the courses offered by Professional Development Courses at the University of La Verne are open for anyone to register at any time during a semester. Additionally, students will earn graduate, non-degree semester credit, reflected on the official transcript from the university.

Registration is simple and can be done online or over the phone. Courses are offered ongoing during three semesters, and you can start at any time. Students may choose to enroll in up to a maximum of 15-semester credits at any time during each semester.

Fall: September 1 - January 31

Spring: February 1 - May 31

Summer: June 1 - August 31