The primary purpose of school learning or studies is to foster academic excellence among learners. However, numerous but distinct purposes of educational institutions are embedded in their mission statements (Alegre et al., 2018). Therefore, as an instructor, it is paramount to develop classroom or learning environment strategies that enhance the learning institution’s mission statement that you are placed in to ensure that the whole fraternity of stakeholders in that learning institution is satisfied. One such strategy is students’ motivation (Dörnyei & Muir, 2019). As an instructor, I have implemented a student motivation strategy, and through reflecting on such implementation, more insights can be constructed.
Recently, I implemented students’ motivating practices strategy in the classroom to ensure that parents as stakeholders and students as the primary beneficiaries of learning are ultimately satisfied with their institutional choice. During one class with students, I was collecting students’ responses to their first homework, and then I decided to implement the students’ motivation strategy. I was perplexed to realize that it was giving out an excellent outcome. The strategy that I implemented was giving a mind-boggling narrative of three different personalities towards a particular cause of action that triggered students to ask how I became a chemistry teacher. With an opportunity to describe my way to excellence despite my naive background in environmental conservation, I connected by narrative to inspire and motivate students who see the syllabus as a complex undertaking to request avenues to assist them towards academic excellence. Such a strategy result surprised me, and I would continue using it since it motivates students to seek further academic assistance after classes. Even though I used other engagement and motivation practices such as asking students to outline their semester’s three primary goals, using personal narratives that describe academic progress and link academics with social responsibility application, it motives students more to seek academic excellence as the honor rewards are imaginary painted in their minds.
As I indicated earlier, the steps I implemented during class led to students asking for further questions and avenues for academic assistance to ensure that they excel in chemistry. Various students were able to talk about their limits that are considered vital for chemistry performance. For instance, I remember one student describing themselves as being not good at school and would prefer to be a chef. However, I did not let that perspective control them. I offered them a choice to consider putting effort into their Excel in that course, which was moderated to be fair by incorporating tests with multiple choices that demand fair thinking. Through such questions, our engagement contributed to reaching the primary focus on using office hours. I explained to them that those hours are created for after-class assistance that could be physical or remote. Generally, the strategy prompted much discussion and questions since the idea of excelling in academic performance was displayed among students with social responsibility emotional attachment. Moreover, implementing the strategy ensured open communication throughout the session and super-linking of various disciplines to the primary course (chemistry), and the broad application of chemistry knowledge was vividly explained. Thus, students got more involved in implementing the strategy since social responsibility rewards of chemistry knowledge were openly defined to them.
Even though the strategy contributes to higher student engagement and academic motivation, it does not view a class as one but as integrated students, as each student speaks for themselves. Such an observation may be detrimental to students who fear publicity to express their academic limits for assistance. Therefore, to ensure that all student engagement needs are met within the classroom, I will allow the implementation of both verbal and written questions or students’ perceptions in my future classes as a refining process to obtain maximum student responses during classroom engagements. The other step will be to motivate shy students to openly engage in classroom discussions by directly asking them about their perceptions or calling them out if they have questions and ensuring that they are applauded if any of them talk. Generally, the two steps will ensure maximum student engagement during motivation.
In conclusion, a student motivation strategy that implements the usage of instructor achievement narratives attached to social responsibility is effective. However, despite its significant improvement in student engagement and pursuit of academic excellence, it needs to be more inclusive since the nature of how I implemented the strategy was selective on students’ responses. Therefore, a more inclusive motivation strategy will increase all students’ engagement by using written texts and verbal expressions to display their thoughts during motivation.
References
Alegre, I., Berbegal-Mirabent, J., Guerrero, A., & Mas-Machuca, M. (2018). The real mission of the mission statement: A systematic review of the literature. Journal of Management & Organization, 24(4), 456-473.
Dörnyei, Z., & Muir, C. (2019). Creating a motivating classroom environment. Second handbook of English language teaching, 719-736.
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