Motivating the Unmotivated

I found an article online written by Maria Koklanaris published by The Parent Institute titled "7 Proven Ways to Motivate Children to do Better in School." http://asfms.net/parentworkshops/pdfs/SevenProvenWaystoMotivateChildren.pdf

This article, as the title states, gives seven ways that parents can motivate their unmotivated child.

The First step is to set proper expectations. According to Koklanaris, a parent should expect their child to successed, yet they should base their expectations on the child as an individual, incorporating what they know to be their strengths and weaknesses. Communicate to your child that you expect to see them trying their best. Do not look at the goals look at the steps to get there. Re-evaluate them on their efforts and interests about every three months or sooner. Review the expectations and highlight their improvements so far.

The second way to motivate your children is by setting goals. Goal setting involves three steps. One is you writing goals down for your child so that they have a visual reminder. Two is making the goals measurable so that you can see progress. The third is emphasizing a plan on how to achieve the expectations clearly. If the goal is to improve your child’s math grade first make that expectation within reach. For example, instead of saying that you want to get their D to an A, set the expectation of getting it to a C. After that is met you can build from there. Explain how to reach these goals by setting little goals to help them get there, for example practicing math problems for 20 minutes each day and taking the practice test in the back, even though it is not assigned. The article then goes into more detail by giving Five steps that help your child accomplish anything. 1.Have them make a conscious decision to do something. 2. Decide when they will do it. 3. plan how they will do it. 4. commit to someone else that they will do it. 5. Make a specific appointment with a person to report whether they have done it or not.

The third way to motivate your child is by showing them that you think that school is important. Of course if you do not care, neither are they. Koklanaris outlined five ways of showing that you care other than helping them achieve goals and setting expectations. One of them is maintaining a relationship with your child's teacher. Discuss the teachers goals for the curriculum and work together to come up with ways to help your child met those goals. The second way of showing your child that school is important is by supporting school programs. It has been scientifically proven that parental involvement in school is correlated to academic success. These modes of involvement include: back-to-school night, parent teacher conferences, volunteering at school fundraisers, volunteering for field trips, and joining the PTA. A third way is to create a suitable environment to do their work. Make sure that they have a quiet, bright environment and let them know that you will get them whatever supplies that they need. Fourthly, keeping up with your child’s assignments, be aware of their assignment of when big projects are do. And Lastly another ways to let your child know that you feel that school is important is to stay positive, show enthusiasm for what they are learning.

The forth way is to support your child’s learning style. Early this semester we talked about the different learning styles: analytical, global, auditory, kinesthetic, visual, linguistic and musical. In this article they separate children into three groups: auditory, visual, and kinesthetic. Children feel more motivated about school when they can incorporate their learning style into it more. Koklanaris explains the attributes each learner has so that a parent can categorize them under the appropriate style, she then gave studying tips for that specific type of learner.

Auditory

· You know your child is an auditory learner if they:

o enjoy listening to music and hearing stories, they follow oral directions well, they are comfortable talking and feel, and they are more comfortable reading spelling words aloud rather than writing them.

· Study tips

o Auditory learners benefit from recording themselves and hearing it back. They also benefit from using pneumonic devices, rhymes, songs, and associated words. Have them play an audio recording of a book while they follow along. Have them talk through their problems “okay and now I carry the one…”. And lastly, give them an oral quiz.

Visual

· You know your child is a visual learner if they:

o learn best by reading or looking at graphs/tables. These students like to have something visual or written to help with oral presentations. They enjoy art, movies, and theater. Prefers studying charts rather than repeating aloud.

· Study tips

o Have your child make a poster or have an erasable whiteboard chart and have them fill in the things that they need to do that week. When they are assigned a textbook reading they should first skim through and look at all of the graphs and tables. When they are studying they should use colors as much as possible. Flashcards are a great medium for students who are visual learners.

Kinesthetic

· You know your child is a kinesthetic learner if they:

o Learn best from building or preparing a chart. These students like to move and would prefer to participate rather than observe. Prefers to create things and do hands-on activities rather than learn theories. When they are trying to remember things they tend to pace or study in a “non-sitting position.”

· Study tips:

o Encourage them to take study breaks where they do a physical activity. You should give them the maximum amount of room to study as possible. Parents should encourage hands-on projects for things like science fairs and also figure out ways to make any assignment a physical activity. You can aid these children with their reading comprehension by acting out passages in their text or be their audience.

The fifth way of motivating your child to do better in school is by giving encouragement. Koklanaris emphasizes that there is a big difference between praise and encouragement. Children unconsciously depend or your assessment of their success when you give praise. Encouragement leads the child to assess themselves. Praise should be used when the child worked as well as you wanted them to. Make sure to use opinion words and discuss the results that they received. This article did not mention this, but it also may be beneficial to let them know that their progress or achievement has positively affected you personally. Encouragement can be given whether or not they met the goals or not. Go over what to do differently if they did not reach the goal and use a positive attitude. It is essential to give encouragement when you notice effort and progress. Make sure to use descriptive words.

The sixth mode of motivating your child is reinforcing learning at home and in the community. Culture them and open their eyes to new points of view. Koklanaris gives the example that if your son or daughter likes basketball, take them to a ballet to show them that athleticism can be seen in all different forms. Culture can be taught in different ways such as a cultural family dinner night. Making cuisine from a different culture gives them a taste of that culture, using a sense that is not usually used for learning.

The seventh and final way to motivate children to do better in school is by encouraging them to be resilient. One neuropsychological study done by the University of Utah, supported that resiliency is developed by creating specific qualities. These qualities are: having a well-built notion that an adult will have unconditional love and support for them, capability to solve their problems without the help of others, understand and can focus on their strengths, and realize that everyone makes mistakes and that we can all learn from them. These qualities allow children to be prepared for whatever comes their way. There are four ways to install these qualities in your children: Empathizing with your child, giving your child practical choices, altering your method when the initial one does not work, and supporting your child’s interests and talents.

Question: What do you feel motivates you to do your work/ be successful?

Re: Mike 3/27/11

Do you think motivation is completely on the teacher or does it depend on the student? If so, what is more effective, positive or negative reinforcement?

Motivation is an internal drive, some people do not need to be pushed because they have it on their own, yet others need to be pressed. If people need to be pushed I feel like it is jointly on their family members, bosses, friends, and teachers to help give them that boost.

If a teacher wants to give their students a lift to cooperate in class, a behavioral intervention is one of the most ethical and easiest ways to go about it. I first want to make clear the differences between positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, and punishment, because there seems to be some confusion. Both types of reinforcement strengthen behavior and punishment weakens it. Positive reinforcement is when a stimulus is added in order to increase behavior. It is a common misconception to think of negative reinforcement as a "bad" type of reinforcement; negative does not refer to quality. The key word for negative reinforcement is "escape." When an adverse stimulus is presented, a person engages in the desired behavior in order to escape the undesired stimulus. A general example of negative reinforcement is when your car beeps until you put your seat-belt on. You put your seat belt on in order to escape the beeping. Nagging, complaining, and whining are verbal forms.

Punishment is the process of providing consequences for a behavior that decrease its frequency. Yelling is a type of punishment, more specifically called "reprimand." Punishment has many other forms, one is "response cost" this is when someone has to give up something as a form of punishment, a common example is a parking ticket (you have to give money). Another type of punishment is “overcorrection” this is when you have a person fix what they have done wrong and also repeatedly engage in the correct behavior on top of that. The last two types are "time out", and “physical punishment” which I think are both self-explanatory.

If a teacher wants to go the behaviorist route to motivate students the type of reinforcement or punishment used depends on the situation. If students are talking amongst themselves there are many types of ways to handle it using behaviorist techniques. You could go the punishment route by yelling (reprimand) or giving a detention (response cost). You could also go the negative reinforcement route by having an annoying sound be played every time the students act up. As soon as they are quiet, turn the sound off. After repeated pairings, in theory, they will no longer display that behavior. In order to use positive reinforcement in this situation you would have to wait until they display desirable behavior (being quiet) in order to thank them for shutting up (not in those words, of course). Every form has its place and with any situation you could devise plan behavior interventions and then choose which fits the situation the best.

Question: Behavior analysis is one tool to get students to cooperate in a classroom. Yet, does cooperating and doing what educational society wants of you necessarily mean that you are motivationally driven?