Raising Student Motivation During the Pandemic | Effective Teaching Strategies - Faculty Focus

Dr. Shruti Nagpal, assistant professor in the computer science department of Worcester State University, Massachusetts argues, In spring 2020, faculty across the country stood up to the challenging task of not only transitioning and adapting to online modes of instruction but also multi-tasking through learning new technology, advising, having online office hours, attending official meetings, responding to students who would request Zoom meetings outside of office hours, and much more.

Raising Student Motivation During the Pandemic

Everyone came together with one underlying motive—students’ benefit. Now, as we look forward, we need to make decisions based on a long-term perspective. Faculty need to walk a tightrope of keeping students motivated while not letting their own morale down. Student motivation will be a major concern, irrespective of which study model is adopted: online, blended, hybrid, or a myriad variation. For simplicity, I have clubbed all variants of remote/online learning modes and termed them as Pandemic learning modes. This article delves into approaches for constructive student engagement that can help raise student motivation... 

The Boomerang Principle

I believe teaching is based on the “Boomerang principle,” which implies what one gives, one gets in return.  One may also ideologically relate it to Newton’s scientific law in which every action has an equal and opposite reaction. But the point to be made here is that the more effort that is spent to motivate students to keep students constructively engaged, the better the chances are for students to reciprocate, to get involved, and to progress. And this does not end here. Continuous student involvement and engagement adds fuel to teacher motivation, which completes the circle. In order to live and practice this Boomerang principle, there has to be mutual trust, mutual admiration, and mutual motivation.

In the current pandemic scenario where teachers must deal with pandemic learning modes, student motivation is of paramount importance. I would like to borrow from Maryellen Weimer’s [3] synthesis of Paul Pintrich’s [2] meta-analysis on motivation and how these principles can be further adapted in various pandemic learning modes to raise student motivation.

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Source: Faculty Focus