MOTIVATIONAL TEACHING STRATEGIES THAT IMPROVE STUDENTS' LEARNING 6
MOTIVATIONAL TEACHING STRATEGIES THAT IMPROVE STUDENTS’ LEARNING
Alisa Celentano
Post University
Author Note
This paper was prepared for Capstone Project, EDU 699, taught by Dr. Ajtum-Roberts.
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to explore and discover specific motivational teaching strategies that improve students’ learning. It is essential that teachers present information to students in an interesting way to help them become engaged, stay attentive, and excited to learn about a topic, which is why studying motivational teaching strategies proves to be significant to the field of education. The more a student is motivated and involved in his/her learning, the more a child will progress in his/her knowledge and critical thinking skills. This capstone project used both quantitative and qualitative methodologies to collect data at a preschool program that serves over one thousand students in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Seventeen teachers in the preschool program answered open-ended questions pertaining to how the teachers motivate students and why they believe the strategies they use are beneficial to increase developmental progress as well as rated nine research-based motivational teaching strategies. An outcome report was analyzed to discover the teachers who met or exceeded the program’s scores for students in four developmental areas. The results revealed that providing students with immediate feedback was rated as the most important by the teachers who met or exceeded the program’s scores. In addition, it was discovered that teachers who successfully improved students’ learning implemented academic techniques. Professional development training was created to educate teachers and educators on successful motivational instructional techniques.
Summary
The capstone project conducted by an Education Specialist in a preschool program that serves over one thousand students in Bridgeport, Connecticut researched how motivational strategies that teachers use can positively impact students’ learning in preschool. Seventeen teachers in the preschool program completed two surveys that asked questions pertaining to motivational teaching strategies. Teachers were given the definition of motivation to ensure they have a clear understanding of what the word means in relation to education. Motivation is defined as “the act or process of giving someone a reason for doing something: the act or process of motivating someone…the condition of being eager to act or work…a force or influence that causes someone to do something” (Merriam-Webster, 2013, para. 1). There are variations of the definition of motivation; however, this definition was chosen because it relates to how teachers should motivate students to learn in the classroom. One survey asked demographic information relating to the teacher’s education level and experience as well as questions pertaining to how they motivate students and why they believe the strategies they use are beneficial to increase developmental progress. A second survey asked teachers to rate specific motivational teaching strategies.
Data was collected from using “The Creative Curriculum System for Preschool, a research-based system…that offers comprehensive resources to help early childhood educators build exceptional high-quality programs” (Teaching Strategies, 2011, para. 1). Data was gathered from three Creative Curriculum checklists the teachers completed for each student in the 2012-2013 school year that assessed progress in the areas of social emotional, cognitive, language, and physical development. An outcome report was used to show the total percentages of development for each of the four areas for every class and to discover the classes that have shown the most developmental progress. The teaching strategies used in the classrooms that have shown the highest rate of developmental growth in the reports were cited as strategies that positively impact students’ learning. From the data collected, the Education Specialist has demonstrated leadership by creating professional development training for over two hundred teachers in her program to educate them on successful motivational instructional techniques, how to implement the strategies in the classroom, and how the principles of cognitive science can be applied to help improve teaching practices and students’ developmental learning outcomes. The professional development training and consistent support that will be offered to the teaching staff by the Education Specialist on motivational teaching strategies will work towards improving the specific learning outcomes as outlined in the Creative Curriculum checklists.
Rationale
The capstone project conducted on how motivational teaching strategies can positively impact students’ learning is important to research because there is a lack of studies conducted on motivation and its’ impact on students at the preschool level. Specific motivational strategies need to be discovered and explored for students in preschool because “learners’ motivation has been consistently linked to successful learning” (Clayton, Blumberg, & Auld, 2010, p. 350). It is essential that teachers present information to students in an interesting way to help them become engaged, stay attentive, and excited to learn about a topic. The more a student is motivated and involved in his/her learning, the more a child will progress in his/her knowledge and critical thinking skills, which relates to cognitive science and how students’ learning can be positively affected. This idea relates to Perkins’ (2009) principle of teaching to “make the game worth playing” because motivation, especially “intrinsic motivation [has shown to predict] greater achievement” with students (p.55). By “game”, Perkins (2009) is referring to what the students are learning (p. 55). As a student becomes motivated in his/her learning, he/she is more apt to want to continue learning about the topic/concept.
When a student loses interest in a topic, the teacher does not have the student’s undivided attention because his/her mind is elsewhere. “When we withdraw attention from an event or object, we lose consciousness of its attributes and properties” (Ahmadi, Gilakjani, & Ahmadi, 2011, p. 1366). Therefore, if a student is unmotivated, unengaged, and loses interest, he/she will not learn the information and will be unable to use it for future reference. “The whole point of education is to prepare people with skills and knowledge and understanding for use elsewhere, often very elsewhere” (Perkins, 2009, p. 114). For these reasons, it is necessary for teachers to ensure they are implementing motivational instructional strategies by providing engaging activities that will motivate students to want to learn, which will help improve students’ learning outcomes over time.
Literature Review
The research from the scholarly peer-reviewed articles reveals that instructional strategies teachers implement in the classroom can have a direct impact on students’ learning. The teaching techniques discussed in the literature review reveal teaching methods that have had a positive influence on students’ learning in the classroom. The specific strategies that have shown to improve students’ learning are choosing effective materials and classroom arrangements, providing child-centered activities, integrating students’ interests, supporting students’ intrinsic motivators, implementing activities that meet the learning preferences of the students, being cognizant of students’ learning needs and abilities, challenging students based on their capabilities, connecting classroom concepts to students’ experiences, and providing students with immediate feedback (Acat & Dereli, 2012; Akhlaq, Chudhary, Malik, Saeed-ul Hassan, & Mehmood, 2010; Boi Hoang, Sun Hee, & Yang, 2010; Clayton, Blumberg, & Auld, 2010; Collins, 2012; Goodman, et al., 2011; Hein, 2012; Little, 2012; Oche, 2012; Saleh, 2011; Tella, 2007; & Yildirim, 2012).
The overall themes found throughout the research articles are implementing instructional strategies that support students’ interests, intrinsic motivators, and providing students with choices in the classroom. For example, Boi Hoang, Sun Hee, & Yang (2010) stated that the materials that are implemented in the classroom motivate students when they are “fun…unexpected…[and match] their interests and…daily life” (p. 348). In addition, Hein (2012) stated that providing students with opportunities to become leaders in the classroom and make their own choices helps teachers implement a “more open-ended and student-centered style (productive style) where the teacher acts only as facilitator” (p. 14). Yildirim (2012) also conducted a study that reinforced the importance of teachers supporting the students’ intrinsic motivators (p.163). Similarly, Goodman et al. (2011) found that students’ intrinsic motivation had a positive impact on academic achievement (p. 383). Acat & Dereli (2012) discovered in their study that when “cognitive and lifelong learning goals motivation is very high, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation is high and negative factors for learning motivation is low” (p. 2670). Tella’s (2007) study helped to explain the two ways that students are motivated, either intrinsically or extrinsically (p. 151). When students have an interest in what they are learning, they will decide to continually want to learn about the topic, which will have a positive impact on their academic performance in that area of interest. Teachers should understand that some students are intrinsically motivated in the classroom on specific topics or while participating in specific activities. These studies help to support the idea that instructional teaching strategies impact the way students learn and can positively influence students’ developmental progress.
A different motivational instruction strategy researched by Little (2012) discussed adding “challenge and meaningfulness in the curriculum as critical elements for promoting motivation in gifted students” (p. 695). However, all teachers should ask themselves how they are making learning challenging for every student in the classroom and plan instruction based on the individual academic needs of the students. A strategy connected to this study was researched by Oche (2012) who stated “instructional technique via prompt feedback generally improves students’ achievement” (p. 377). Oche’s strategy connects to Little’s research study because when teachers provide a student with consistent feedback and scaffold activities to challenge the student, he/she is presented with activities that match his/her learning needs and, therefore, can learn specific ways to improve in his/her learning.
All of the studies help to show that “there is a strong link between student motivation and learning…[and] motivation plays a central role in the amount of time students will invest in their learning” (Akhlaq, Chudhary, Malik, Saeed-ulHassan, & Mehmood, 2010, p. 41). When a student is motivated in the classroom, he/she will want to learn what is being taught, pay attention, participate and remain engaged with the classroom activities, and, therefore, be able to later recall and apply the learned knowledge in future experiences because he/she would have absorbed and retained the information. Therefore, it is important for teachers to recognize ways to use motivation in the classroom to help students want to learn what is being taught.
Project Detail
The capstone project consists of discovering how motivational strategies teachers use can positively impact students’ learning. A timeline was used by the Education Specialist to ensure all components of the capstone project were completed as planned, which is noted in Appendix A. In October of 2013, seventeen classroom lead teachers in a Bridgeport, CT preschool program voluntarily completed two surveys that asked questions pertaining to motivational teaching strategies, which helped the Education Specialist create and prepare a professional development training on the topic for the program. The surveys are shown in Appendix B & C. The teachers and classroom names have been kept confidential in the capstone project and professional development training. The classrooms were given a fictitious name to keep the teachers and classrooms’ identity confidential. The teachers were first given the definition of motivation to ensure they had a clear understanding of what the word means in relation to education. One survey asked teachers demographic information, such as how long they have been teaching and their education level as well as how they motivate students, what specific strategies they use to motivate students, which technique(s) they believe is the most beneficial for students to increase their developmental progress, and why they think the specific strategy or strategies prove to be the most beneficial. Teachers were also given a second survey that asked them to rate nine specific motivational teaching strategies on a scale from one to nine, which came from the strategies discussed in the literature review. Each strategy received a number one through nine; each number was only used once. The number one was used for the teaching strategy that was viewed as least important to implement in the classroom to motivate students and the number nine was used to rate the teaching strategy that was viewed as highly important to implement in the classroom to motivate students and improve students’ learning outcomes. The goal was to discover which teaching strategy or strategies the teachers rate the highest and find to be the most important to implement in the classroom.
The students were also participants in the study because the data collected came from the teachers’ completed Creative Curriculum developmental checklists for each child in seventeen classrooms. “The Creative Curriculum System for Preschool, [is] a research-based system…that offers comprehensive resources to help early childhood educators build exceptional high-quality programs” (Teaching Strategies, 2011, para. 1). The teachers completed the Creative Curriculum checklists for each student by rating the child’s developmental benchmark in social emotional, cognitive, language, and physical areas based on observations. The checklists were sent to a specialist who totaled the scores to show the overall percentage for each classroom in each of the four developmental areas. The child outcome reports that were used came from the 2012-2013 academic year due to time constraints. The class scores were evaluated to discover the classrooms that have shown the highest developmental progress in May of 2013 in all four developmental areas. There were two developmental outcome reports, which included one report showing data for three year olds and one report showing data for four year olds. The two reports were used to see the total percentages of development for each of the four areas for every class and to discover the classes that have shown the most developmental progress. The reports also included the average score for each developmental area as well as the data for Oct. 2012, January 2013, and May of 2013. The data from May 2013 was analyzed for each developmental area because this showed the developmental level of the students after being in the classroom for an entire year. The program’s average score in each developmental area was compared to each classroom’s score. If the class scored the same score or above the program’s average score in a developmental area, the score was highlighted to track if a class met or exceeded the program’s scores. If the class scored at or above average in all four developmental levels on both three and four year old outcome reports, the classroom teacher was cited as implementing successful teaching strategies. Therefore, the strategies these teachers stated in their surveys as important to implement were cited as the most successful motivational strategies.