In a perfect world, teachers would find all students to be intrinsically motivated to learn. However, reality is very different. A big part of a teacher’s job is to make and keep students stay motivated to learn in class. In classrooms, some students probably are unmotivated and uninterested most of the time. To tackle it teachers need to provide extrinsic motivation — in the form of rewards. The goal is to keep students alert, interested, and involved.
Try the followings in your class and get back to me on how it works.
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Keep the reward system simple: The students should be clear about “good” behaviors and “bad” behaviors. A complicated system will be difficult for the students to grasp and follow. It would be time consuming to manage for you as well.
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Reward students for being responsible: Start from small responsibilities i.e. handing in homework on time. With time, shift the classroom management system to teacher to the students.
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Always give consistent rewards for academic achievement: This will help students to prioritize their education as most important.
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Raise the bar of rewards: Raise the expectations that must be met for the rewards as the students’ progress. This way the value of the rewards will not go down and the development curve of the students will be steeply increasing.
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Decrease the rewarding frequency: Begin with rewarding students often and slowly reduce the rewarding frequency. It would help maintain expectation and the sense of achievement in students.
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Reward systems are short: Keep your reward systems short and introduce new reward system once you have achieved your goal. For example, your goal is to develop a certain behaviour in your students (i.e. organizing their desks), reward them accordingly and you will see students actually are organizing their desks so that they can grab things quickly and you can waste less time with "personal invitations" to certain students to get their things out! When the habit has developed, you can move on a new reward system and focus on a new goal.
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Use frequent rewards to motivate troublemakers: Modify behavior systems for students with extreme problems. Frequent smaller rewards given to these students may have more benefit.
Students want a better life and to be good but struggle with the amount of effort required to achieve it. They do not realize that applying themselves while they are young will make it easier for them to reach their goals. The rewards used by the teachers help them get over that hurdle. So try rewarding students in class to motivate them to achieve their goals.