Are your students motivated by success or by a fear of failure? As an educator, you must ensure that six motivational keys are met in order for students to feel motivated to achieve success. Each thing you say and activity you provide must have embedded in it: safety, success, a valued purpose, freedom and independence, love and belonging, and enjoyment.

Of course different parts of your day, different students, and different activities won’t require the same levels of each key at all times, yet these foundational principles upon which you build your classroom must be at the core, or students will revert to their natural need to fear failure.

Here is a more specific explanation of each key with a practical suggestion to making it work:

1) Safety: Students must feel emotionally, physically, and mentally safe in the classroom. That means sarcasm might not be used in your classroom, or that you allow students to choose whether they will participate in an activity (they must still show understanding in an alternative form--keep them accountable!), or that you make sure every student has access to the correct answers before asking them to perform for the class.

2) Success: Students must be able to see visible progress towards their goals. This means that you might provide a chart that they keep in a folder that they can chart progress on a particular skill--they will be able to graph how they do over the course of a few weeks to see gradual improvement. Making students feel successful might also mean letting them retest (See the blog entry on retesting for more on this) until they reach an A or B level. Students in my class love progress reports and report cards because they nearly all have A's or B's. Finally, feeling success might also come in a less tangible form, like encouraging words from you.

3) Valued Purpose: Many students need to know why they are doing an activity in order to buy in to the activity. When I teach Romeo and Juliet, and students ask me "Why do we have to do this?"
I tell them, "You don't."
They answer, "Really?"
And then I explain, "You have the choice to not do anything I assign. You can even choose not to come to class. I can't really control that. Romeo and Juliet has no influence on your future success. However, we will be using Romeo and Juliet to study people, opinions, human nature, and issues and themes that relate to everyone, and those types of skills are very important to your future success."
As students understand why I assign something, and I share what my purpose is, and then I back up what I say by not giving them pop quizzes and making them memorize the minutiae of the story, they enjoy the story, the purpose, and the issues far more, and I get to spend more time on what matters--the state standards.

4) Freedom and Independence: Students have a need to feel like they have their own stamp on the classroom, their space, and their assignments. I work with students to create expectations for them and for me, and we agree that if I do list A, they will do list B, and whenever there is an issue with an individual, the first thing I do is refer to list A (did I do something incorrectly?). I apologize to students for things that I did not do that I should have, or did that I should not have.
Also, I work on rubrics with students so that we all have a say in how I will grade their work--and they usually have higher standards than I would. I also let students choose their seats (no seating charts) and I allow healthy snacks and water/diet soda/juice into the classroom. I find that if I have adult expectations for their behavior, they begin to act more adult-like.

5) Love and Belonging: Some students need to feel appreciated, cared for, or just noticed in order to perform. I look for those students who are painfully shy and I watch for special gifts or talents they have, then I compliment them privately, so I don't make a show of them in front of other people. Other students may need a high five or a fist bump to show them you share their excitement, and even high school students like getting a success stamp on their well done assignment.
Overall, students just need to hear encouragement and support from you daily. As a teacher, I know my mind is drawn first to mistakes, and my mind says to get on them for what they need to improve. Instead, I have to discipline my mind to find the correct, and compliment it, without strings attached.

6) Enjoyment: Students must enjoy the activity they are doing in order to buy in and do it well. Instead of handing our worksheets, hang up informational posters, and make students move around the room to find the information. Allow students to interact, to move, and to perform. The more the students do to teach themselves and each other then content, and the more the teacher becomes a facilitator instead of a lecturer, the faster and more permanent the learning is.

Remember, in teaching, as in life, the size of the question determines the size of our answer. Instead of asking "How I am I supposed to do all this?" ask "Why would I do all of this?"

My answer was "It's the right thing to do. It's what I would do for my own child."