Students indicated that they find the course material more interesting when it is relevant or meaningful to them in some way. Students expressed a number of different reasons for attending university, ranging from learning and personal growth, to getting into graduate school and preparing for a career. With such a wide variety of reasons for attending university, different students are motivated by different things.
When the course content is meaningful and relevant to the student – that is, when the content helps them achieve their goals for university or when it is applicable to their lives or future careers – students find value in learning it. Participants indicated that content is more meaningful when they understand why a topic is important and how it connects to other topics. Offering students choice allows them to explore areas of interest and creates a sense of ownership.
Explaining why the course is important for a field of study and highlighting how a topic connects to another topic within the course or in another course helps students find value in the course material.
It is valuable to have opportunities for students to be outside of the classroom environment, so they can use theories learned in the classroom and apply them into the real world. Students seem to feel more fulfilled when their education is not just abstract concepts, but rather knowledge that can be transferred in real working experiences. As one Arts student suggested during our student focus group, “I did my internship <not-for-profit>, and I’m still volunteering with them today. It just, it was such a nice learning experience to be out there on the field and actually using that knowledge and manipulating in a way that it’s not just a textbook, it’s wow I’m doing it”. When students find value in the subject matter, it increases their motivation to learn. As wellbeing is defined as a “state of being comfortable, healthy, or happy”, the increase in motivation thereby increases student wellbeing as well.
Here are some ways you can enhance students’ motivation to learn!
- Sharing their passion and enthusiasm for the subject
- Allowing students choice in their assignments
- Fostering critical thinking
- Explaining why a topic is important
- Connecting course concepts to the “real world”
- Showing students where to learn more about a topic
- Connecting students to community
- Using hands-on or applied learning
We would love to hear what your opinion is on this topic! Please share with us your thoughts below. We look forward to journeying with you on the path to employing teaching practices that promote student wellbeing!