One of the greatest challenges in teaching is motivating students to learn and reach their God-given potential. While there are no secret formulas for motivating every student, there are several fundamentals that will enable teachers to have great success in motivating students to learn. Whether a parent, Christian school teacher, or a Sunday school teacher, your influence can greatly aid in a student developing a love for learning and reaching his potential spiritually, academically, and socially. Let’s look at five foundations for student motivation.

Leaders must be enthusiastic, fully equipped, freshly studied, and thoroughly prepared if they are to motivate and inspire students. Leaders must then create a caring and safe environment in their classrooms. Leaders should also use helpful illustrations and clear examples that students can relate to and fully comprehend. When a leader spends time in fervent prayer, is sincerely enthusiastic about his subject, is thoroughly prepared, and demonstrates genuine concern for each student, students will become better learners and more highly motivated.

Students need to have a right attitude toward learning. It takes hard work, sacrifice, and determination to become a good learner, but it is certainly worth it! Set high expectations and help students achieve success as their leader. Daily develop a student’s heart and mind for Christ by displaying the love and grace of the Lord, providing excellent instruction, and building character through biblical discipline. Keep students engaged and parents involved.

Gain the student’s attention and begin each lesson with excitement and familiarity. Provide application and make connection between the rigorous, content-rich knowledge you are giving them and how it is useful and practical for them. Appeal to student interest whenever possible to keep students engaged and motivated to listen and learn. In short, good lessons ought to be profitable, challenging, applicable, and memorable.

Begin lessons with words common and understood by your students. Define new words in the lesson and give clear definitions and examples. This will help students expand their vocabulary. God gave us language, let’s make sure are students master it and use it for His glory! Besides using speech and lecture, use a variety of time-tested teaching aids and visuals which encompass the senses and continually engage the students into the learning process.  

This process does involve basic memorization, but it builds greatly upon this foundation. For example, students must learn to memorize their multiplication tables before they can master higher order mathematics. Thus, the memorization of important facts is the foundation for learning, but certainly is not the end. Ask questions and provide assessments which employ Bloom’s six levels of learning (Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, and Evaluation). These high-order thinking areas must be integrated in every subject of learning from a biblical perspective to help develop a sound mind and a proper worldview. Assist students daily by challenging them to think about ways to express, evaluate, and apply all that they are learning. The learning process takes a combined effort by parents, students, and teachers. At the end of this process, a student becomes a well-educated and equipped young person who has sound biblical discernment and is a critical thinker. He also can clearly articulate his words, is a lifelong learner, and greatly value the investments of his parents, pastor, principals, and teachers.

 

While each of these five areas above are vital in a student’s motivation, the most important area involves the leaders—they must form a strong and healthy team as they lead, teach, and motivate students to reach their God-given potential for His glory!