Motivation in the Classroom

Something that I've personally found to be very beneficial is the idea of a shared respect between teachers and students. It is expected that students respect and listen to their teacher, however, do teachers always respect their students? I think that students will become more comfortable and even motivated in the classroom. Students can be shown respect by giving them more privileges such as the ability to self-assess, or as I talked about in my last post, enabling them to feel that the room is theirs as well. This is giving them a sense of self responsibility too.

I also want to make sure that I am knowledgeable about whatever it is I'm teaching at the time. Since I want to teach special education, I'm going to be covering things from daily hygiene to math and science so I have to make sure that I know what I'm talking about. In higher level special ed classes, I will have to worry about keeping my students engaged. And in order for them to walk into class each day wanting to learn, they will have to know that I sincerely know what I'm talking about. It's always frustrating to have to sit and listen to a teacher who doesn't know how to articulate what it is they're thinking.

Another important aspect is to make sure that my students know that they aren't wrong. After seeing how it works in our class, I'm convinced it works even better at younger ages because younger kids care more about what their peers think. Sometimes they'll need to be told that they are on the right track but aren't quite there and will need a little bit more direction. But for me personally, I never wanted to participate if I was unsure or had given a wrong answer previously in fear of looking bad in front of my peers.

I think that moods are contagious. If someone is mad or in a bad mood, they're more likely to bring you down. As a teacher, I want to consistently be able to separate my outside life from teaching and not bring outside problems in. I think by having a positive attitude and being excited to be at school everyday, it will make students also see that school can be fun and that teachers enjoy their jobs and are excited to see their students everyday. I guess this could go along with SLT and modeling, as I would be modeling how I want my students to approach learning in hopes that they pick up on it too.