Common complaints of students

“This lesson is so boring”

“Wish  I did not have to study this”

“O, I wish this class would end soon!”

How many times have you heard this refrain from your students, whispered past you, as you go by them?

Believe it or not, forcing students to learn a subject or a topic is not the best way to motivate them about it. No matter how challenging a subject or topic is, teachers and educators need to find interesting ways to keep their charges motivation.

Motivating learners

Moving ahead is all that matters, regardless of how slow or fast…

First and foremost, students need to understand what and why are the learning.

This means, that the instructional goals has to be very clear. This would help to engage and motivate them. If they do not see the connection between what they are doing and their learning goals, they would be very likely to get disinterested soon.

Once the instructional goals, the learners’ interests, behavioural and learning styles and attitudes need to be kept in mindwhile designing lessons. The lessons need to be tailored according to the learning styles of students. For example, some students are visual learners while others have kinesthetic intelligence. Activities designed may need to include some related to watching  films or doing something which involves physical activity.

Few helpful strategies

Different kinds of teaching strategies can also be used to teach concepts. These include inductive and deductive teaching strategies which approach the concept through totally opposite ways. Cooperative and collaborative learning strategies can also take into account the social needs of students and help them engage more in the task at hand.

While all these technologies and techniques are there for making a class interesting, what is most essential is the genuine interest and passion for the subject, displayed by the teacher. The level  of knowledge, the communicativeness, eagerness and willingness to listen to student views will certainly contribute the maximum to student engagement.