Encouraging Student Motivation

Tip Sheet No. 17

from the CTL workshop November 28,1995

facilitated by Pat Carr, English, and Carol Graham, Management.

1. Give more responsibility to students to shape the content and progress of the course (through group work, peer evaluations, giving them choices for projects, etc.).
2. To stimulate thinking and discussions, give daily shorft quizzes on reading assignments. It should be possible for all students to earn a 90 or 100 with reasonable effort.
3. Give second chances to succeed-- let them re-do quizzes and tests. Otherwise, they'll give up when they have no chance to improve their grade.
4. To encourage discussion have them take some quizzes as a group. (Each person turns in ftheir own answers for grading). Have students write a paper as a group. Offer bonus points for learning the names of classmates-- learning is social!
5. Use social pressure to your advantage by allowing groups to "fire" a non- contributing member (Call CI L for an example of such a policy.)
6. Have a question from group projects on fthe final exam in order to find ouf who contributed to the project. Have the group members grade each other.
7. Have assignments that build in a sequence. For example, have them write a portion of a product and then re-write it for the final paper. Without re-writing they may not read and profit from your comments.
8. Have students apply materials from the class to real-life issues of concern to them. Include both factual and application questions on tests. Motivate graduate students by having them write publishable papers.
9. Allow students to learn; give students credit for their capabilities.

For more information about this workshop, contact any of the following individuals who attended or the CTL staff: Ahmed Arif,Lou-Ann Crouther, Beverly Foshee, Nancy Goldfarb, Ted Hovet, Neely Sheucraft, Dean May, Nick Nichols, & Charity Van Winkle.