Encouraging Students' Intrinsic Motivation

Top Strategies and Tips for Building Intrinsic Motivation in Students

1. Model the Strategies, Benefits, Beliefs, and Positive Characteristics of Intrinsic Motivation
2. Discuss the Aspects of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation
3. Roll Play the Different Types of Mindsets Associated with Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation
4. Build Autonomy, Trust, Self Esteem, and Self Persuasion
"Reward" Mastery, Genuine Hard Work, and Academic Struggle
5. Rethink using Fear of Punishment as a Motivator
6. Create a Celebratory Atmosphere, Education is a Joyous Journey and celebrating genuine hard work, showing up and participating with your heart and soul, and taking academic risks is reason to have a party
7. Rethink Data, Grades and Test Scores
8. Success breeds success, build competence, confidence, self-reliance, and deep curiosity
9. Set SMART goals that take repeated diligent practice over time to reinforce, success only comes through hard work and a strong work ethic
10. Create a Culture of Revision of ideas, Skills, and Knowledge through Formative Socratic Feedback
11. Build a Community of Cooperation, Communication, Friendly Competition, Empathy, and Compassion
12. Remember, Rome was not built in a day!

Known as a drive to be involved and succeed at a task regardless of reward, intrinsic motivation is pivotal for students in a classroom. In order for them to enjoy their education and remember everything they learn, they need to want to be taught for their own sake and not just because there is a reward at the end. Today, we are going to address this issue and suggest some strategies for building this motivation in all students so they go on to work for themselves and a better future!


Take an Interest in Them - First and foremost, how can we expect students to take an interest in their own learning if we aren't willing to invest our time and efforts in them? Rather than teaching from outside a window (figuratively, of course!), learning providers should get to know their students because then they can be a part of the students’ dreams, aspirations, and interests.

Not only should we listen to them, we should also talk to them about our own stories. Whether it is our successes or failures, students can learn important life lessons without even actively chasing them. From here, they will build their own interest in a task and the reward will be participation in the task itself.

Be Flexible - Let’s face it, all students have different interests much the same way that some adults like the theater whilst others would prefer to do anything else but this on a weekend. Therefore, teachers need to be flexible with tasks and allow students to explore their interests. For example, endlessly asking a student who isn't interested in doing essays to write about Shakespeare would be a pointless task.

Recently, we heard of an example of this where a student had never written an essay because they simply weren't interested. In the interest of being flexible, the teacher learned about the student’s interests and found video games along with sports. Immediately spotting the solution, the teacher asked him to write about his favorite video game or why one sport was better than the other. Eventually, the student did BOTH tasks, the teacher went through the essays with him for feedback, and he opened himself up to future progress.

Exude Trust - Often, it is a lack of trust that separates the students and teachers. When a teacher obtains the ‘best teacher’ title within a school, it is often because they respect the students and understand their needs. If there is trust within a classroom, the students won’t want to let the teacher down and they gain an interest in their own learning. Whenever the students prefer to be shouted at than the teacher feeling ‘disappointed’, you know that both parties are on the right path.

Celebrate Achievements - If the students do tasks and it goes unnoticed, the motivation will slowly decrease until it has completely evaporated. Of course, intrinsic motivation is all about internal reward but praise and some kind words go a long way to boosting this motivation. Suddenly, they are working for themselves without actually realizing.

Remove Grades - Finally, we also suggest creating one lesson a week that is completely free from grades. Often, the motivation (or lack of) comes from the student’s grade in a previous lesson. Therefore, it can be beneficial for them to improve for the sake of becoming better rather than just trying to improve the letter at the top of the page. Later in life and throughout their career, they won’t get graded so intrinsic motivation is important to build early on for a successful future!
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