Posted by Denise Seguin.
The work done in a course must be connected to the student’s life in some way and be perceived as being useful now or in the future.
This connecting of the course work to a personal goal gives value to the work. The relevance of an assignment, project, or class discussion may be obvious to you but not to the student. One suggestion is to have the students discover those connections on their own. Still, you need to prompt that discovery. Consider having the student provide a statement about relevance at the end of an assignment.
Many teachers may already be instinctively building self-motivation with their students without formalizing a strategy in lesson-planning. By becoming more aware of that goal while thinking about your next class, you can start to observe and see what works best for your students.
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