Re: Motivating students to put in effor

by Austin

Apr 14, 2017

Hello, I am having difficulty in my classroom this year motivating my students to put in some effort. This is my first year teaching and I teach Junior Chemistry. Typically we take notes and then spend the remainder of the class period practicing the concept via worksheet or practice problems. What they don't finish in class is then for homework. Doing the time in class, I float around the classroom and assist when needed. Usually students only get a problem or two done in class. What I've noticed then is they don't complete the rest for homework, or they are simply coping off of classmates. When test time comes around, my students who attempt the homework and work diligently in class get A's and everyone else fails. There is little average grades. Any ideas or suggestions on how to get these other kids to attempt their own work?

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Betty Ann I suspect that your students are bored with taking notes and doing worksheets. Are you doing demonstrations? Are the students doing experiments? Are they making predictions and discussing them? And then testing them? Posters? Models? Presentations? Make the concepts from the unit into a Jeopardy game?

You need to be excited about what you ...See More

Apr 14, 2017

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ChemTeacher I agree with Betty AnnOn,

Notes are boring and tedious. Students are not being taught to take good notes in the lower levels and it shows. You can try to teach them the techniques for taking good notes or teach them chem but not be effective doing both. I make prepared note packets for each chapter which are basically study guides that the...See MoreI agree with Betty AnnOn,

Notes are boring and tedious. Students are not being taught to take good notes in the lower levels and it shows. You can try to teach them the techniques for taking good notes or teach them chem but not be effective doing both. I make prepared note packets for each chapter which are basically study guides that the students fill in the additional material and practice problems that we go over. I spend about 15 to 20 minutes of notes per class if any.

We do several other activities each week including minilabs, full labs, virtual labs, group activities, etc. I try to make every Friday, Fun Friday, where few notes, if any, are taken and we do a fun activity.

To further motivate students, I have a Ticket system. (those raffle tickets). 1 ticket for complete and generally correct homework, 1 ticket if they take full notes for the day, 5 tickets if they get a 90+ on a quiz, 10 tickets of the get above an 80 on a major test. At the end of the quarter, students can redeem tickets to improve their Quarter grade. I don't to quiz or test corrections, or give extra credit, so this is a way from them to use their effort in class to help them. Generally it costs 25 tickets to add 10&37; to a test grade, which adds about 2 points to your overall quarter grade. 20 tickets allows you to drop a quiz grade, 15 tickets gives you a 100 on your homework average, etc. Students can only purchase one grade improvement. The tickets keep the kids doing their homework, studying, etc. which has resulted in better grades by about 3-5&37; on average. They really do like the ticket system.

I also had students research a specific element and make a poster tile on it that we then turned into a periodic table. Students also made and gave a mini lesson (PPT) on a specific topic (topic list given), did a 1 minute presentation on a specific scientist, made their own Christmas ornaments from Borax to learn about solution saturation.

There are all kinds of things that you can do. However, you have to remember, they are only going to do what they want to do in class. You can provide them with all the resources, opportunities, activities, games, tickets, etc, but if they don't want to do it, you can't make them.

Good Luck.

4/14/17, Betty Ann wrote: > I suspect that your students are bored with taking notes > and doing worksheets. Are you doing demonstrations? Are the > students doing experiments? Are they making predictions and > discussing them? And then testing them? Posters? Models? > Presentations? Make the concepts from the unit into a > Jeopardy game? > > You need to be excited about what you are teaching and > communicate that to your students. > > > > On 4/14/17, Austin wrote: >> Hello, >> I am having difficulty in my classroom this year >> motivating my students to put in some effort. This is my >> first year teaching and I teach Junior Chemistry. >> Typically we take notes and then spend the remainder of >> the class period practicing the concept via worksheet or >> practice problems. What they don't finish in class is >> then for homework. Doing the time in class, I float >> around the classroom and assist when needed. Usually >> students only get a problem or two done in class. What >> I've noticed then is they don't complete the rest for >> homework, or they are simply coping off of classmates. >> When test time comes around, my students who attempt the >> homework and work diligently in class get A's and >> everyone else fails. There is little average grades. Any >> ideas or suggestions on how to get these other kids to >> attempt their own work?

Apr 18, 2017

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