Every teacher daily faces a number of behaviour problems. For the explanation of these problems, he has to turn to psychology of motivation. This is a great problem for teachers, parents, administrators and those interested in the improvement of performance and learning of people.
Students in the class-room learning require constant motivation from the teacher so that maximum use of their talents may be made for their welfare and also for the welfare and progress of the society.
A learner may be motivated for an action in a particular situation but the other learner may not be motivated in that situation and even the same learner may not be motivated under the same situation for any other occasion.
The socio-economic condition, previous experience, age and social climate in the class-room all affect the process of motivation.
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Psychologists have developed some common techniques which may be used by a class-room teacher to motivate children in their work.
The teacher should not strictly adhere to only one theory of motivation but should make use of various approaches in his teaching keeping into consideration the individual differences among the students.
Below are given some important techniques of the motivation in the class-room teaching learning situation.
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Maturation
It is useless to attempt motivation in school learning if the learning assignment is too difficult for the child’s readiness or his maturation. Maturation and motivation must be synchronized.
Formal learning can occur only if the learner is psychologically, mentally and emotionally mature enough to understand and carry out the assignment.
Provide Real Life and Symbolic Models
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Most of the learning in human beings is acquired through the process of observation and imitation. The teacher can influence the behaviour of his students by his attitude and ideal living written or verbal presentation and by use of audio-visual techniques.
Aspiration Level
It means the level of performance to which one aspires for future. The teacher must see that the activity of the class is in accordance with the aspiration level of the students.
The level of aspiration depends on several factors like intelligence, parental relations and expectation from children. The teacher should organize the activity in such a way that students keep striving and give a Promise of goal attainment.
Create Needs to Learn
The teacher must create psychological and social needs for learning in his students. The importance of class-room learning should be related to future life of the students. The students should be actively involved in learning task.
Setting of Goal
Motivation is goal oriented behaviour that leads to drive reduction in the organism. Goal setting is an important component of human motivation. Teacher should set goals both for individuals and the class which are attainable.
Respect for the Personality of the Child
Children as well as adults have their pride and self-respect. Any attempt to embarrass or humiliate a child especially in the presence of his class-mates is likely to end in withdrawal. The teacher can accomplish a great deal in motivating school learning by appealing to age maximization than by shaming and ridiculing the learner.
Self-motivation
Know of results, high aspiration and clear goals are the best preparation and incentive to self-motivation.
Setting a Good Example
The teacher is a very important person in the school and child’s life, and his own personality influences the learning more than the methods and materials of teaching
Group Dynamics
Along with the teacher, his playmates, parents, relatives etc., and every person with whom the child comes in contact influence his behaviour directly or indirectly.
Group dynamics offer the best means available for development of social skills essential for democratic living, better social understanding and preparing the individual for democratic citizenship.
Novelty
Every novel thing creates interest in the individual. Teacher must introduce novelty in to his teaching. According to Travers, one of the essential ingredients in energizing pupils in the class-room is the provision of materials that permit them to move into new fields of exploration.
The subject matter should be presented in novel ways so that curiosity and interest of the students may be maintained.
Use the Principle of Pleasure and Pain
Pleasant experiences which give satisfaction are sought and painful experiment is avoided by the individuals. Thus the teacher must provide pleas out and satisfying experiences to his students so as to motivate students for further learning.
Use Praise and Blame
Praise and blame have different effects on individual students. Some students may be praised for minor achievement because of their limited abilities but others will be motivated by praise for more worthy accomplishment related to their high ability. Praise can be verbal, or symbolic in nature. Teacher should be cautions while using praise in the class-room.
For each and every activity, children should not be praised. Blame should be sparingly used because it creates personality maladjustment. Successful use of praise and blame depends upon the students, their personality and prior learning experiences.
Use Rewards and Punishments
The teacher must occasionally administer reward and punishment in his class-room teaching. Rewards create interest in the students. They are motivated to get the reward. The teacher must use punishment very sparingly because punishment creates behaviour troubles. He may use reward of different types as material, symbolic and psychological.
Reward has a positive effect in motivating children for learning. The teacher must remain cautious that the reward should not become an end in itself but should create learning desire in the learner.
Competition and Cooperation
Teacher should stress friendly relation rather than rivalry. Competition should involve a degree of equality among the participants. Competition may be of 3 types- (a) interpersonal competition among peers, (b) Group competition, (c) Competition within oneself.
Like competition, co-operation is also a strong incentive for motivating children. Teacher should encourage active participation of all the students in the learning activates.
Knowledge of the Result (Feed Back)
The knowledge of the performance of the learner works as a motivating force in learning task. Learning is faster and effective when the learners are provided with the knowledge of their progress. The teacher should provide proper feedback to the students to motivate them in learning.
Use of Effective Methods, in Teaching
In order to create motivation the teacher should use progressive methods based on psychological principles. The use of audio-visual aids and the services recovered by museum, library, and visit of place directly helps the teacher in motivating his students.
There are many other techniques which have been successfully used like team teaching, discussion method etc. In spite of all the techniques referred above, the place of the teacher remains supreme, his teaching method, warmth and his techniques of handling classroom problems play an important role in the process of motivation in the class-room teaching.