Maintaining motivation in the classroom is not easy. Planning activities and grading homework drain the energy of both students and teachers, and that can have an effect on your mood.
To ignite enthusiasm, increase students’ attention, and help them develop academically and personally, we as teachers can set goals together with students. Clear goals that encourage personal commitment and establish a good basis for a pleasant and optimistic atmosphere are essential to providing a productive learning environment.
Returning to college is always a good time to design new goals, although it is also possible to set new goals during the year.
An important aspect to work on is a learning objective, which should describe what students should know or be able to do by the end of the course.
Delimit and clarify
The goals we set are often unclear, leaving room to feel that we have failed, when in reality, our very vague goals did not make it entirely clear how we would achieve them.
It’s important to foster a supportive workspace in the classroom to talk with our students and guide them to create well-defined resolutions for themselves that are accompanied by a plan of action.
This activity also gives us the opportunity to strengthen the sense of community within the classroom, as many students will have ideas in common, and can come up with support plans to strengthen each other and can exchange motivational ideas.
Help your students define exactly what their expectations are if, for example, they are looking for improvement in their pronunciation of words in another language, or if they are more interested in grammar, or if they want to learn another language in a comprehensive way.
If a student’s goal is to improve their pronunciation of new words, then the student might focus on conversing, listening to music, or watching a television series in the language they are interested in.
Find a plan of action
In addition to carefully outlining the opportunities a student has, it is also important to consider how a student is going to solve the challenges they will face.
For example, to improve grades, it is necessary to hand in all homework and study consistently. This is an example of a plan of action that can help a student achieve their goal of succeeding within the classroom.
Common goals
Along with individual goals, setting shared goals for the classroom can help students feel that they are part of a goal much bigger than themselves.
Create a simple reward system or other similar strategies in which students feel recognized when they achieve a goal.
Remember that goals should also be accompanied by an action plan and should be very specific, so that there is no doubt when a student has achieved them.
By Andreina Ibarra.
Read also: Be Successful in Your Return to College
