Tips

Motivating Students

• Find out about your students' interests, experiences, hobbies, career goals... As often as you can, relate the content to students' interests.
  
  
• Use lots of examples, illustrations, anecdotes, stories.
  
  
• Use humor.
  
  
• Use appropriate self-disclosure. Be a "real" person. Let students know some things about you.
  
  
• Admit mistakes, lack of knowledge. Don't try to be THE authority. Instead, model where students can find the information. Knowing where to find the answers is just as important as knowing the answers.
  
  
• Talk less than your students do.
  
  
• Encourage interaction among students. Use group work, encourage discussion, try brainstorming, role playing, whatever you feel comfortable with. Try something NEW.
  
  
• LISTEN.
  
  
• Give positive feedback, verbally (praise) and non-verbally (make eye-contact, smile, nod).
  
  
• Make sure that the level of teaching matches students' background, ability, and experience.
  
  
• Check that the relevance of what you're doing is clear to the students.
  
  
• Use as much VARIETY in your methods and materials as possible.
  
  
• Be clear about what's going to happen. Use an agenda.
  
  
• Encourage students to make decisions about their own Learning -- give them CHOICES, act on their suggestions.
  
  
• If possible, encourage students to have input into how they will be evaluated.
  
  
• Ask students how the sessions could be made more interesting!
  
  
• Engage students in their learning. Activity is much more motivating than passive listening or passive responses. The more students DO, the more they will LEARN.