I am traveling this week to Barton College to consult with them about how to support student athletes. They will be adding a football team in the fall of 2019, so I am interested to learn about how they have planned for that and to offer them suggestions on how to support these students inside and outside the classroom. Since I am traveling, I feel fortunate to have a guest post from blogger Sarah Fawcett on how students can keep the drive to learn alive. Thanks for reading and I'll be back next week with a post about my visit to the folks at Barton.
Gretchen
Keeping the Drive To Learn Alive by Sarah Fawcett
Finding the motivation to learn is one of the most challenging aspects of being a student. It’s easy to say that studying leads to academic success and is therefore essential, but there are days that even picking up reading materials is difficult. However, with the right mindset, anyone can keep the drive and motivation to learn alive.
Set goals
To cultivate the best mindset for studying, you should start with setting goals. Instead of aiming to be the class achiever, Teacher Magazine suggests that students should try to set personal bests, a type of goal setting where you try to surpass your own grades. There’s still the element of competition (you vs. you) that will inspire you to work harder. But at the same time, it minimizes the tendency of comparing yourself to others, which can be a source of pressure.
Manage your time wisely
One of the reasons students have such a hard time with school is that they can’t manage their time wisely. There are too many things to do outside of academics that you can get too engrossed in a particular activity, and lose the time to study and with it, the motivation. However, if you can stay disciplined to stick to your regular study schedule, you can learn how to pace yourself, finish faster, and have more time to devote to your extra-curricular activities.
Avoid procrastination
Procrastination is a student’s mortal enemy. Very Well Mind enumerates the major reasons behind academic procrastination which include overestimating the time you have left to complete assignments, and the motivation you can summon in the future. When the time does come for studying, the lessons may no longer be fresh in your mind and you will have to review the concepts. Plus, when time is limited, students often resort to a quick scan of their notes or tend to get sloppy with their projects.
Give yourself a reward
A reward system is one trick you can employ for self-motivation. The secret to maintaining the efficacy of this technique is incentivizing smaller goals. For instance, after each chapter that you read, you can eat a piece of chocolate. It’s essentially half of the operant conditioning theory in action, where positive behavior (i.e. studying) is reinforced through rewards.
Aside from self-motivation, it’s also important to recognize external factors that have a significant impact on students drive to learn. Maryville University explains that academic performance is influenced by your mental health, which can be affected by certain environments. Parents and peers can directly contribute to academic pressure which can have negative repercussions on a student’s mental health. In fact, NPR reported that one in five kids in the US have issues with their mental health, but the majority of them don’t get the help they need. This leads to several issues in school including "chronic absence, low achievement, disruptive behavior and dropping out".
The steps mentioned above can help students retain their motivation, but remember that teachers also have a vital role in this matter. One of the questions previously posed here on the Gretchen Kreahling McKay blog is about an educator's responsibility in stimulating a student’s curiosity.
To sum everything up, motivation is a combination of a student’s internal need to continue learning, and the proper support system or environment that fosters growth. Without the other, it will stall and learning will reach an impasse.
Especially written by Sarah Fawcett for gretchenkreahlingmckay.net
