Sometimes students show a lack of motivation because they are not challenged by the material presented. Give students more challenging, but attainable, goals to keep them interested and engaged.
Transcript:
In the past, when I've had a student who has trouble staying motivated, getting motivated -- anything involved with motivation -- I often will try to challenge them in certain ways. It depends on the student, but I had a student this past year who, there was a point in the year where his lack of motivation genuinely made me think he didn't know how to multiply. As a 4th grade teacher, that's a real problem. So, I told him "I really don't know if you can do this. I'm going to give you this really hard problem and see how it goes." And he was all about it. He did the problem. It was fine. It alleviated all of my worries. And it gave him something to feel proud of because it was something that was hard and he was able to feel successful in it.
So, what I'm really trying to say is sometimes providing those unmotivated students with something even harder, while that may seem counter-intuitive, will actually promote the best results.
