July 28, 2025 • 23 mins
LEARN MORE at http://teach4theheart.com/352
Encouraging student motivation can be one of the most challenging parts of being a teacher. Have you ever thought about the role your classroom management plays in this? Listen in as we discuss how classroom management influences student motivation!
00:00 Introduction of Classroom Management and Student Motivation
06:27 Building a Foundation for Motivation
12:14 Relationships for Increasing Student Motivation
Resources/Links Mentioned:
8 Easy Way to Turn Boring Worksheets into Engaging Activities – Rise Up Summit: https://youtu.be/SSDXKkQfoKU
Classroom Management 101: https://teach4theheart.com/cm101
Back to School Classroom Management and Motivation Training: https://teach4theheart.com/training
Classroom Management Podcast Series Episode 1: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/classroom-management-01-what-kind-of-classroom/id1075393336?i=1000602940811
Rise Up Summit: https://riseupchristianeducators.com/
If you liked this episode, check out our Classroom Management Playlist at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqOa5heLXggdIL2pxolZeWg11tLJHHSnD
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Do find it really difficult to motivate your students?
(00:02):
Have you ever considered that classroom management and student motivation actually canwork together for either bad or good?
Let's dive in and talk about that today.
Welcome back to the Teach 4 the Heart podcast, where we tackle teaching challenges from abiblical perspective.
Why are we here?
Because we don't believe that our spiritual walk and teaching profession should exist intwo separate domains.
(00:24):
Rather, the hope we have in Christ should change how we approach everything, not just athome, but at school as well.
So join us as we explore both the spiritual and practical sides of key teachingchallenges, integrating them together so we can succeed at teaching, glorify God, make a
lasting difference in our students' hearts and lives.
This episode is brought to you in partnership with the Herzog Foundation.
(00:45):
I'm joined once again by Beki Jones, one of our Teach 4 the Heart oh team members and aTeach 4 the Heart Plus mentor.
Beki thank you so much for being with us again today.
So glad to be here.
So we're really excited to talk about this topic today, which is about how classroommanagement and student motivation actually can either work together for good or work
(01:06):
together for bad, and how we can get them working together for good instead of harmingeach other.
I do think, obviously, we're all aware of both of these issues in our classroom.
We all know we have classroom management.
We all know student motivation is a big challenge, especially in the last five years.
But I don't think we always think about how they actually relate to each other.
(01:27):
So I want to start talk first about the downward death spiral, which is when they arehurting each other.
And then we'll talk about what they look like when they're working together.
And then we'll kind of talk about how can we actually get them to working together.
So first of all, the downward death spiral, what this looks like is when you have, andit's kind of on those chicken or the egg, like which comes first, I don't know.
(01:48):
But if you have a chaotic
So like your classroom management is struggling.
There's a lot of chaos in it.
That actually is demotivating for students because they feel like they're distracted.
They actually lose some of the credibility.
you as a teacher are less credible so they can lose some respect.
So I don't really need to listen.
So it really is demotivating.
(02:10):
And then students that are demotivated are gonna cause more problems.
which makes classroom management even a bigger issue, which then demotivates studentsfurther, which then causes more.
Do you see how we are not going in a good direction?
Beki, have you ever seen or observed this downward spiral before?
definitely.
And in addition, it's interesting, in addition to affecting the motivation of students, itcan affect the motivation of the teacher.
(02:32):
Having a chaotic, stressful environment that you have to walk into every day can juststart to wear on you to such a significant degree that you just want to give up.
Yes, and it's way harder to bring energy and excitement, which once again makes it harderfor the students.
we've all been there to some extent and it's just not good.
that's kind of the bad news, but seeing that maybe it's helpful for you to realize, ohyeah, these actually can tie together.
(02:56):
But on the other hand, when you get them working together the other way, they can actuallyhelp each other.
And we'll talk in a minute about how we really believe classroom management is a keyfoundation.
Because when you do have a base level of order,
that first of all creates a calm classroom environment where students can think.
And that immediately helps.
They're not being distracted.
(03:17):
It also helps because you are building credibility as a teacher.
What Dave Stewart talks about is one of the five key beliefs that motivates studentmotivation, which is basically this belief that my teacher is good at what they do.
They know what they're doing.
It doesn't matter the age of the student.
That's like kind of, it's different in different ages, but they...
pick up on it regardless of their age.
(03:39):
And that intrinsically is a motivating factor of like, okay, or at least it doesn'tdemotivate them.
Does that make sense?
So realizing, okay, my teacher actually knows what she's doing.
Like she's competent.
Like she's keeping us on track.
That actually helps motivate them.
Even if they might not realize that's what's happening, you might not realize what'shappening.
It does really help.
And then students that are even a little bit more motivated aren't gonna cause as manyproblems, right?
(04:04):
And so that...
Once again, you're helping now, we're helping each other.
with there not being as many problems, you now have space and mental energy to be morecreative in your lessons and really build those relationships.
And all of those other pieces that factor into motivation have space because yourfoundation is secure and you're not being completely derailed by, I mean, you're gonna
(04:25):
have student issues always, but you're not being derailed by a million issues that youdon't have time and space for that.
Yeah, it reminds me of Maslow's hierarchy where we have the base level needs.
The base level need is classroom management.
You have to have that solid and then you build on that to build increased motivation andall of those other fun things in education.
But without that base level, you're lost.
(04:49):
Yes, so yeah, we really do believe classroom management is such a key place to start.
uh I think a lot of times we think, uh know, maybe if I start with student motivation,that will help.
it does, but I just really believe if you got it, it's that classroom, it's thefoundation.
Like you said, it's like that basic need.
It's very hard to do all the things that are gonna motivate your students if the classroomis chaotic.
(05:14):
It just gets lost.
So you really kind of, if you're having issues with classroom management,
I would say focus on their first.
Really work on that because once you have that, everything else becomes easier.
Not easy, but easier um to deal with.
Yeah, I totally agree.
So if you do need help with classroom management, by the way, we are having a freetraining depending on when you're listening on this tomorrow.
(05:39):
If you missed it, you could probably grab the replay still.
So go to teach4theheart.com / training.
It's called classroom management and motivation for back to school.
So definitely sign up for that if you need some more help with classroom management.
We are really excited to help you with that.
But for right now, let's kind of talk about, um so we're not gonna spend too much timetalking about the classroom management.
(05:59):
piece right now because we talk about it a lot on this podcast.
But we would just really encourage you, like you've got to figure that out.
And if you don't know what you're doing, I said, attend the training, go back and listento our classroom management series on here.
We'll link to that in the notes.
um And also on YouTube, we have a whole classroom management playlist.
So we have so many resources for you to help with classroom management.
(06:21):
I want to talk for a minute about motivation though, because I think with motivation,
A lot of the conversation that's happening around there is focusing on things that I feellike are like just these surface issues instead of the really deeper issues, right?
We're like, well, let's just make a fun activity.
And now fun activities, can be good.
(06:43):
I'm not saying don't do fun activities.
They are a good tool in your toolkit, but those at best are pulling in studentsmomentarily.
While it's fun, I'm with you, right?
So that's good and worthwhile, but that is not producing like
Long-term motivation, um it's more of like a, it's more of the band-aid fix than the realfix.
So long-term motivation is not a quick fix.
(07:07):
It's like the longer, it's more of the slow burn, but it can be really, really helpful.
And Dave Stewart talks a lot about this.
I've already alluded to that.
He talks about five key beliefs that students either have or they don't.
And the more they believe, the more motivated they are and the less.
the less they are.
We don't have time to get into all of these.
Basically, the idea though is if a student, I'll just give a few examples.
(07:30):
If a student, we always talk about credibility, believes that their teacher is good atwhat they're doing and cares about them, that is motivating.
On the other hand, they're like, I don't know if my teacher knows what they're doing and Idon't know if they care, that's demotivating.
Same thing for energy and effort.
Do students believe if I put effort in here, I can succeed?
That's motivating.
If they're like, it doesn't matter how hard I try, I can't do this, demotivating.
(07:52):
um Same thing with relevance.
Do I believe this matters for my life?
Or, no, I don't think it does.
Those beliefs are really what's going to have that intrinsic motivation or not.
And so the work that we do um needs to go deeper than just coming up with fun activities.
And that's why, like I said, Classroom Management Foundation, because it's very hard to doall that work without that foundation.
(08:16):
Yeah, I will say one way that I like to kind of marry the quick fix fun activity, becausethose are important, with pushing students to more of a delayed gratification motivation
mindset is I'll hold it out as a carrot.
So my kids love Quizlet Live.
It is so motivating for them.
But I don't just say, hey, we're going to do Quizlet Live today.
say, hey, here are our goals for the day.
(08:38):
If we succeed at that and we have some extra time, Quizlet Live it is.
And so it's, again, that's a short term thing because we're talking about one lessonperiod, but at the same time, it's helping them see you have to do these goals first
before you get to the fun stuff.
And so it's pushing them toward that delayed gratification motivation element, not justgiving them the, here, I'm going to motivate you.
(09:02):
I'm going to get your attention right now because that's going to work against you in thelong run.
that.
That's such a great example.
right.
And I'm glad you brought that up because I definitely don't want people to be thinkinglike only do this stuff because like you said, this, is like the long, you've got to do,
you've got to do both like short term, medium term, long term.
You want to work on kind of all three of those planes.
But I love that example you gave because you are basically helping them learn thoseskills, right?
(09:28):
Learning that belief that like, if I, if I work hard, it pays off because I worked hardand I got the game.
Like, so showing them,
having them experience that with short-term motivation.
And yeah, for kids and teens, those longer motivations are very hard.
Telling them, this will help you get a job one day, or you're great at the end of theyear.
Like, well, it's September.
(09:49):
That doesn't, I don't care.
So helping shorten that frame and helping them experience that in these shorter timeframeshelps build those skills and beliefs long-term.
This is such a great point.
And I will say as a teacher, like do not give it every time.
If they don't earn it, don't give it.
Sometimes we feel like if we throw it out there, we have to then do it at the end.
Even if we didn't feel like we had time, that is a trap.
(10:11):
That is working again against that goal.
If they don't earn it, they don't get it and they're gonna complain about it.
But that's part of that learning process.
that's such a good point, right.
And I know I always feel that, right?
We said it, we put that out there.
That's so disappointing, but that's how you learn, right?
To experience, we didn't do it and experience that disappointment.
Yeah, that's
This episode is brought to you in partnership with the Herzog Foundation.
(10:35):
The Herzog Foundation puts on retreats and trainings throughout the year to equip teachersto share their faith and grow in their profession.
If you are looking for inspiration and encouragement connected with apologetics,athletics, the arts, reading, special education, or engaging with parents, there is a
retreat for you.
Visit teach4theheart.com / Herzog Retreats to sign up and learn more.
(10:59):
That's teach4theheart.com.
Now, back to our program.
So in actually the training that we're doing tomorrow, the back to school classroommanagement and motivation, we talk about a five-part framework um for motivating students.
And we don't have time to go into it in crazy detail, but I kind want to just touch onthese five pieces.
(11:20):
because I think they'll maybe spark ideas and give you guys some things to think about.
So in this framework, step one, we've already talked about this, is to reduce chaos.
So, these, by the way, these kind of go in order, not that you don't do number five ever,but basically like focus on this one, then kind of focus on one at a time.
So once again, reducing chaos is such an important foundational concept.
(11:41):
You kind of have to start there for all the reasons that we already talked about, but Ibring it up one more time also to encourage you.
Sometimes we feel like, I'm working really hard on classroom management.
Like, does this really matter?
Like, no one is like, I'm so excited to like, you know, hold my students accountable and,you know, give out consequences.
Like, this is not a fun part of teaching.
(12:02):
But I just want to encourage you that the work you're doing there is paying off, not justin behavior.
It is an investment in so many things.
It is investment in the motivation, in the academic success of your students.
It is an investment in your relationships with them and in the ability to have thoseconversations that are going to have an eternal impact.
I mean, it's an investment in all of that.
(12:22):
So step one, make sure you're working on that.
All that work you're doing to reduce chaos is going to be hugely helpful.
And really, it's an investment in their whole lives.
They need those foundational, like, I have to do what my boss says for the future.
They can't have that in mind necessarily.
It's a long-term goal, but we can as teachers.
It's part of the goal.
Yes, absolutely.
So we really believe reducing chaos is step one in motivating our students.
(12:47):
They absolutely tie together.
Number two, I have as building relationships.
Relationships are so important and like we've been talking about when students know thatyou care about them, not just if they're an A student, you care about them as an
individual.
You don't just see them as a problem.
That is...
(13:08):
really, really helpful.
And there's, my goodness, there's so many strategies we could talk about, but I'm to talkabout one really quick that I really love.
It's also from Dave Stewart.
I steal and share so many of these things because he's amazing.
And he's going to actually talk about this at the Rise Up Summit in detail.
So you guys should join us at the Rise Up Summit, um riseupkishoneducators.com um to hearmore about it.
But it's called Moments of Genuine Connection.
(13:29):
So the concept is this.
um You initiate, you keep track of when you have moments with each student.
You do them during the day, you're not doing this like on other times, maybe before class,after class, during a work period.
And you just have a moment, so it's brief, where you connect with that student, where youjust have a little conversation or you point out something that you noticed or you
(13:50):
encourage them.
And you just have that moment where you're connecting individually with that student.
And he recommends right down, have a roster and just put a little date when you do it andtry to get through everybody in the first, it depends how many students you have, first
couple of weeks or first month of school.
I think that's just one strategy, but I think that's a really powerful one.
(14:10):
Beki, what would you recommend?
I'm just gonna wholeheartedly agree with that.
It shows your students that you don't care about them as a grade.
They're not a grade to you, they are a person.
And so it's just really, and it takes work.
Like you need to remember, I need to remember.
right, Suzy has a baby brother now.
Hey, how'd you sleep?
Was baby brother up crying all night?
Or Joey's trying to work on an art book that he's creating on his own time just for fun.
(14:35):
And so you ask about the things that your students care about.
outside of class.
You can ask about class too, that's fine as well, but you need to demonstrate to them thatthey're not just a grade to you.
You don't just care about them because of the output of work that they do for you.
You care about them as people, and that's so important.
Yeah, and maybe on your roster, you're just jotting little notes of things so that youremember for next time.
(14:56):
Yeah, that's so powerful.
So that's just one strategy.
But yeah, building relationships is key.
Once again, doesn't pay off necessarily in September, but throughout the year, you'rereally going to notice a difference.
So number one, reduce chaos.
Number two, build relationships.
Number three, cut the confusion.
my goodness, I could talk for really long on this.
We don't have time for this.
But I really, one of the things that is so demotivating for students is that they don'tunderstand what's going on in your class.
(15:19):
And this is a tough one because
It's like, I don't know.
If you're struggling with this as a teacher, your students are definitely struggling withit.
And there's no like quick fix for it.
But I guess I will just say, if you notice that your students are really struggling tounderstand your content, you've got to figure that out.
You've got to go to mentor teachers and saying, I'm having this problem.
(15:41):
What can I do differently?
Talk to admit it.
Like, Take it on yourself to go seek that out.
Because if your students are confused either about the content you're teaching or aboutlike,
how to do a project or any of that, that is super demotivating.
And you have certain students who will rise to the challenge.
Don't fool yourself because there's, well, these students got it.
No, they're self-motivated.
(16:03):
They're the go-getters.
They're the ones that can figure it out on their own.
But there's a group of students that, I don't want say they can't figure it out on theirown, but they won't.
And so we've got to make sure that we are, our students, that they understand what we'reteaching them.
That's just so, so important.
And I would say that differentiation is so key to this reality ah in the elementary world,which is where I'm from.
(16:27):
Like we have to make sure we know kids get core content during certain parts of their day,even if you've got a fourth grader who's reading at a kindergarten level.
And that's just the reality of our system.
However, if they're only getting fourth grade content throughout their entire day and theyare reading at a kindergarten level, there is no way you can motivate them to rise to that
(16:47):
challenge.
It is
an insurmountable challenge right now.
So we have to make sure that there are times in their day where we are differentiatingdown to their current level of learning to help build them up to where they need to be.
We can't just say they have to be here, they have to be here and just teach to this level.
That's not a feasible, workable reality to create a motivated student or frankly, astudent who can learn effectively.
(17:11):
You're not teaching where they're at.
Yeah, that's such a good point.
And once again, when you put yourself in the students thought, like just imagine like whatwould it be like if I'm supposed to be like, it's like impossible.
So I was like, what can I do to make that accessible?
What can I do to cut that confusion?
Which actually brings us into number four in our framework, which is helping studentssucceed.
(17:32):
when you, I think this is so important is kind of clear.
Once again, we could talk really long on this, but basically when students experiencesuccess, they start to believe that they can do it.
And they start to, okay, I can actually do this.
I had so much happen in middle school math where students are like, I'm bad at math.
And I would say, no, you're not.
Like when you can have them, oh, I can actually do this.
So many students by the end of the year are like, I love math now.
(17:53):
I'm good at math.
Like, yeah.
So, you know, just being able to help them succeed.
And once again, this is a whole topic in and of itself, but to start doing this is justasking yourself, what do students need to do to succeed in my class?
And then asking, am I clearly articulating that to them?
I almost said, ask yourself, do students know that?
But I think that we tend to assume they do.
(18:15):
We tend to assume, yeah, they know what they need to do.
They probably don't.
If they need to study, what do they need to study?
How do they need to study?
What exactly do they need to know?
And so once again, you're great.
You're A students will figure that out on their own, but the rest, they really can useyour help.
So really helping them, making it really clear how to succeed, and then when they dosucceed, pointing it out to them.
(18:37):
Look at what you did.
Look how your hard work paid off, helping them make sure they noticed that they succeededand kind of build that muscle.
Okay, yeah, I can work hard and I can succeed in this class.
Yeah, as adults sometimes, I think it's really difficult for us to understand how italmost feels like the cause and effect connection is broken for some students.
hey, look, if you do your homework, you do better on the test.
(19:00):
Like, somehow that...
As short as that timeframe is, somehow there just isn't always a connection there.
One of the things I really love is individualized student graphs, whether the studentcreates it or you create it for them and show them to them, uh spreadsheets and Google
spreadsheets can create them for you.
They're fantastic.
But students need to be able to see like, hey, whether you do pre or post or not, buthere's my pre-test score, here's my post-test score, or here's last week's score, here's
(19:27):
this week's score.
And all of a sudden there's a much
closer relationship to the amount of work they put in and helping that graph go up.
And so having that just a little bit more concrete, again, as adults, we're like, well,the number on the paper just clearly shows what you did, but no, it doesn't.
Somehow it needs to be more concrete, more visual for a lot of learners in order to helpmotivate them.
(19:51):
And then when they see that, a lot of kids start to really own their learning and getexcited about their own graph and their own growth.
Yeah, my goodness, it's such a good point.
And I love the graph and Beki is a master at it's all things spreadsheets.
But even if you're like, my goodness, I don't think I could do that.
Just asking yourself, like, how can I make sure my students are understanding this?
Like when they get this grade, do they understand how good that is?
(20:13):
Do I need to come along?
And that's maybe even your moment of genuine connection.
Look how well you did.
I bet you studied, you know, just kind of making those connections for them.
Like you said, I love that the cause and effect is broken.
If it's not completely broken for some students, it's definitely on the struggle bus.
So yeah, just making that for them.
Okay, so much we could talk to there, but let's wrap up with number five.
(20:35):
Number five, make learning relevant and fun.
So once again, I'm not saying like, don't do this until May until you get through all therest, but my point, this is kind of the top of the pyramid.
We absolutely should make learning fun, make it relevant, but if these other things arebroken, making it learn...
fun and relevant won't fix it.
Does that make sense?
Like this is almost like the icing on the cake that makes it really great.
(20:56):
But if you only do this, you can't only make it relevant and fun to success.
But nonetheless, there is absolutely a place for this and so many things you can do tomake things fun.
Maybe we can link to our episode where we did it on how to take a worksheet and turn itinto an engaging activity, which is much more interesting than just here's your worksheet
every day.
(21:17):
um
So yeah, so much we can do here.
Anything you'd say in this part, Beki?
I would say that I think a trap some teachers fall into is lecturing students about whyit's relevant.
That's not effective.
So we know it's relevant to them, but we need to help them understand that it's relevant.
And just telling them about how it's relevant almost never works.
Yes, any quick advice on something that does work?
(21:41):
I am certainly not an expert at that particular part, especially since I feel like it's alot harder when you get into high school, even though it's closer to the reality of when
it's relevant.
But I will say the one thing I've found is helping get it out of students' mouths insteadof your own is really a helpful step.
And so asking them questions and having them articulate it, even if they don't 100 %believe it yet, it at least came out of their mouth as a step forward towards you more so
(22:07):
believing that this is important.
And so asking back and forth uh questions into, why do you think this matters, can reallyhelp them more so articulate and therefore start to believe the relevance of what we're
doing.
I love that.
Yeah, so many things here that we talked about and I hope that this has been helpful foryou guys as you think about both classroom management and motivation.
(22:28):
If you want to dive into both of these topics in more detail, like we said, we have ourback to school classroom management and motivation training.
It is our most popular training by far that we have ever done.
We did it last year and we had just a crazy response.
um So I hope that you guys will join us in for that.
It's at teach4theheart.com/training.
or if you want to just dive right into Linda, want you to help me with this step by step.
(22:51):
We actually tackle both sides, both classroom management and motivation in classroommanagement 101.
You can get more details of that at teach4theheart.com / CM 101.
And you can use the code podcast 30 to save 30 % on your enrollment.
Anything you'd add Beki as we wrap up?
I hope you'll join us, it was a lot of fun last summer.
(23:11):
Yes.
All right.
Well, thank you guys so much for being here.
All the notes and links from this episode are at teach4theheart.com / 352.
And if you enjoyed this conversation, we'd love for you to share it with a friend orcolleague.
Well, this episode has been brought to you in partnership with the Herzog Foundation.
All views and opinions are our own and don't necessarily reflect those of the HerzogFoundation.
We can't wait to be with you again soon.
In the meantime, teach you remember God is at work in you and through you, and he's usingyou to make a difference.
(23:36):
Keep your eyes on him and Teach 4 the Heart.
Do find it really difficult to motivate your students?
(00:02):
Have you ever considered that classroom management and student motivation actually canwork together for either bad or good?
Let's dive in and talk about that today.
Welcome back to the Teach 4 the Heart podcast, where we tackle teaching challenges from abiblical perspective.
Why are we here?
Because we don't believe that our spiritual walk and teaching profession should exist intwo separate domains.
(00:24):
Rather, the hope we have in Christ should change how we approach everything, not just athome, but at school as well.
So join us as we explore both the spiritual and practical sides of key teachingchallenges, integrating them together so we can succeed at teaching, glorify God, make a
lasting difference in our students' hearts and lives.
This episode is brought to you in partnership with the Herzog Foundation.
(00:45):
I'm joined once again by Beki Jones, one of our Teach 4 the Heart oh team members and aTeach 4 the Heart Plus mentor.
Beki thank you so much for being with us again today.
So glad to be here.
So we're really excited to talk about this topic today, which is about how classroommanagement and student motivation actually can either work together for good or work
(01:06):
together for bad, and how we can get them working together for good instead of harmingeach other.
I do think, obviously, we're all aware of both of these issues in our classroom.
We all know we have classroom management.
We all know student motivation is a big challenge, especially in the last five years.
But I don't think we always think about how they actually relate to each other.
(01:27):
So I want to start talk first about the downward death spiral, which is when they arehurting each other.
And then we'll talk about what they look like when they're working together.
And then we'll kind of talk about how can we actually get them to working together.
So first of all, the downward death spiral, what this looks like is when you have, andit's kind of on those chicken or the egg, like which comes first, I don't know.
(01:48):
But if you have a chaotic
So like your classroom management is struggling.
There's a lot of chaos in it.
That actually is demotivating for students because they feel like they're distracted.
They actually lose some of the credibility.
you as a teacher are less credible so they can lose some respect.
So I don't really need to listen.
So it really is demotivating.
(02:10):
And then students that are demotivated are gonna cause more problems.
which makes classroom management even a bigger issue, which then demotivates studentsfurther, which then causes more.
Do you see how we are not going in a good direction?
Beki, have you ever seen or observed this downward spiral before?
definitely.
And in addition, it's interesting, in addition to affecting the motivation of students, itcan affect the motivation of the teacher.
(02:32):
Having a chaotic, stressful environment that you have to walk into every day can juststart to wear on you to such a significant degree that you just want to give up.
Yes, and it's way harder to bring energy and excitement, which once again makes it harderfor the students.
we've all been there to some extent and it's just not good.
that's kind of the bad news, but seeing that maybe it's helpful for you to realize, ohyeah, these actually can tie together.
(02:56):
But on the other hand, when you get them working together the other way, they can actuallyhelp each other.
And we'll talk in a minute about how we really believe classroom management is a keyfoundation.
Because when you do have a base level of order,
that first of all creates a calm classroom environment where students can think.
And that immediately helps.
They're not being distracted.
(03:17):
It also helps because you are building credibility as a teacher.
What Dave Stewart talks about is one of the five key beliefs that motivates studentmotivation, which is basically this belief that my teacher is good at what they do.
They know what they're doing.
It doesn't matter the age of the student.
That's like kind of, it's different in different ages, but they...
pick up on it regardless of their age.
(03:39):
And that intrinsically is a motivating factor of like, okay, or at least it doesn'tdemotivate them.
Does that make sense?
So realizing, okay, my teacher actually knows what she's doing.
Like she's competent.
Like she's keeping us on track.
That actually helps motivate them.
Even if they might not realize that's what's happening, you might not realize what'shappening.
It does really help.
And then students that are even a little bit more motivated aren't gonna cause as manyproblems, right?
(04:04):
And so that...
Once again, you're helping now, we're helping each other.
with there not being as many problems, you now have space and mental energy to be morecreative in your lessons and really build those relationships.
And all of those other pieces that factor into motivation have space because yourfoundation is secure and you're not being completely derailed by, I mean, you're gonna
(04:25):
have student issues always, but you're not being derailed by a million issues that youdon't have time and space for that.
Yeah, it reminds me of Maslow's hierarchy where we have the base level needs.
The base level need is classroom management.
You have to have that solid and then you build on that to build increased motivation andall of those other fun things in education.
But without that base level, you're lost.
(04:49):
Yes, so yeah, we really do believe classroom management is such a key place to start.
uh I think a lot of times we think, uh know, maybe if I start with student motivation,that will help.
it does, but I just really believe if you got it, it's that classroom, it's thefoundation.
Like you said, it's like that basic need.
It's very hard to do all the things that are gonna motivate your students if the classroomis chaotic.
(05:14):
It just gets lost.
So you really kind of, if you're having issues with classroom management,
I would say focus on their first.
Really work on that because once you have that, everything else becomes easier.
Not easy, but easier um to deal with.
Yeah, I totally agree.
So if you do need help with classroom management, by the way, we are having a freetraining depending on when you're listening on this tomorrow.
(05:39):
If you missed it, you could probably grab the replay still.
So go to teach4theheart.com / training.
It's called classroom management and motivation for back to school.
So definitely sign up for that if you need some more help with classroom management.
We are really excited to help you with that.
But for right now, let's kind of talk about, um so we're not gonna spend too much timetalking about the classroom management.
(05:59):
piece right now because we talk about it a lot on this podcast.
But we would just really encourage you, like you've got to figure that out.
And if you don't know what you're doing, I said, attend the training, go back and listento our classroom management series on here.
We'll link to that in the notes.
um And also on YouTube, we have a whole classroom management playlist.
So we have so many resources for you to help with classroom management.
(06:21):
I want to talk for a minute about motivation though, because I think with motivation,
A lot of the conversation that's happening around there is focusing on things that I feellike are like just these surface issues instead of the really deeper issues, right?
We're like, well, let's just make a fun activity.
And now fun activities, can be good.
(06:43):
I'm not saying don't do fun activities.
They are a good tool in your toolkit, but those at best are pulling in studentsmomentarily.
While it's fun, I'm with you, right?
So that's good and worthwhile, but that is not producing like
Long-term motivation, um it's more of like a, it's more of the band-aid fix than the realfix.
So long-term motivation is not a quick fix.
(07:07):
It's like the longer, it's more of the slow burn, but it can be really, really helpful.
And Dave Stewart talks a lot about this.
I've already alluded to that.
He talks about five key beliefs that students either have or they don't.
And the more they believe, the more motivated they are and the less.
the less they are.
We don't have time to get into all of these.
Basically, the idea though is if a student, I'll just give a few examples.
(07:30):
If a student, we always talk about credibility, believes that their teacher is good atwhat they're doing and cares about them, that is motivating.
On the other hand, they're like, I don't know if my teacher knows what they're doing and Idon't know if they care, that's demotivating.
Same thing for energy and effort.
Do students believe if I put effort in here, I can succeed?
That's motivating.
If they're like, it doesn't matter how hard I try, I can't do this, demotivating.
(07:52):
um Same thing with relevance.
Do I believe this matters for my life?
Or, no, I don't think it does.
Those beliefs are really what's going to have that intrinsic motivation or not.
And so the work that we do um needs to go deeper than just coming up with fun activities.
And that's why, like I said, Classroom Management Foundation, because it's very hard to doall that work without that foundation.
(08:16):
Yeah, I will say one way that I like to kind of marry the quick fix fun activity, becausethose are important, with pushing students to more of a delayed gratification motivation
mindset is I'll hold it out as a carrot.
So my kids love Quizlet Live.
It is so motivating for them.
But I don't just say, hey, we're going to do Quizlet Live today.
say, hey, here are our goals for the day.
(08:38):
If we succeed at that and we have some extra time, Quizlet Live it is.
And so it's, again, that's a short term thing because we're talking about one lessonperiod, but at the same time, it's helping them see you have to do these goals first
before you get to the fun stuff.
And so it's pushing them toward that delayed gratification motivation element, not justgiving them the, here, I'm going to motivate you.
(09:02):
I'm going to get your attention right now because that's going to work against you in thelong run.
that.
That's such a great example.
right.
And I'm glad you brought that up because I definitely don't want people to be thinkinglike only do this stuff because like you said, this, is like the long, you've got to do,
you've got to do both like short term, medium term, long term.
You want to work on kind of all three of those planes.
But I love that example you gave because you are basically helping them learn thoseskills, right?
(09:28):
Learning that belief that like, if I, if I work hard, it pays off because I worked hardand I got the game.
Like, so showing them,
having them experience that with short-term motivation.
And yeah, for kids and teens, those longer motivations are very hard.
Telling them, this will help you get a job one day, or you're great at the end of theyear.
Like, well, it's September.
(09:49):
That doesn't, I don't care.
So helping shorten that frame and helping them experience that in these shorter timeframeshelps build those skills and beliefs long-term.
This is such a great point.
And I will say as a teacher, like do not give it every time.
If they don't earn it, don't give it.
Sometimes we feel like if we throw it out there, we have to then do it at the end.
Even if we didn't feel like we had time, that is a trap.
(10:11):
That is working again against that goal.
If they don't earn it, they don't get it and they're gonna complain about it.
But that's part of that learning process.
that's such a good point, right.
And I know I always feel that, right?
We said it, we put that out there.
That's so disappointing, but that's how you learn, right?
To experience, we didn't do it and experience that disappointment.
Yeah, that's
This episode is brought to you in partnership with the Herzog Foundation.
(10:35):
The Herzog Foundation puts on retreats and trainings throughout the year to equip teachersto share their faith and grow in their profession.
If you are looking for inspiration and encouragement connected with apologetics,athletics, the arts, reading, special education, or engaging with parents, there is a
retreat for you.
Visit teach4theheart.com / Herzog Retreats to sign up and learn more.
(10:59):
That's teach4theheart.com.
Now, back to our program.
So in actually the training that we're doing tomorrow, the back to school classroommanagement and motivation, we talk about a five-part framework um for motivating students.
And we don't have time to go into it in crazy detail, but I kind want to just touch onthese five pieces.
(11:20):
because I think they'll maybe spark ideas and give you guys some things to think about.
So in this framework, step one, we've already talked about this, is to reduce chaos.
So, these, by the way, these kind of go in order, not that you don't do number five ever,but basically like focus on this one, then kind of focus on one at a time.
So once again, reducing chaos is such an important foundational concept.
(11:41):
You kind of have to start there for all the reasons that we already talked about, but Ibring it up one more time also to encourage you.
Sometimes we feel like, I'm working really hard on classroom management.
Like, does this really matter?
Like, no one is like, I'm so excited to like, you know, hold my students accountable and,you know, give out consequences.
Like, this is not a fun part of teaching.
(12:02):
But I just want to encourage you that the work you're doing there is paying off, not justin behavior.
It is an investment in so many things.
It is investment in the motivation, in the academic success of your students.
It is an investment in your relationships with them and in the ability to have thoseconversations that are going to have an eternal impact.
I mean, it's an investment in all of that.
(12:22):
So step one, make sure you're working on that.
All that work you're doing to reduce chaos is going to be hugely helpful.
And really, it's an investment in their whole lives.
They need those foundational, like, I have to do what my boss says for the future.
They can't have that in mind necessarily.
It's a long-term goal, but we can as teachers.
It's part of the goal.
Yes, absolutely.
So we really believe reducing chaos is step one in motivating our students.
(12:47):
They absolutely tie together.
Number two, I have as building relationships.
Relationships are so important and like we've been talking about when students know thatyou care about them, not just if they're an A student, you care about them as an
individual.
You don't just see them as a problem.
That is...
(13:08):
really, really helpful.
And there's, my goodness, there's so many strategies we could talk about, but I'm to talkabout one really quick that I really love.
It's also from Dave Stewart.
I steal and share so many of these things because he's amazing.
And he's going to actually talk about this at the Rise Up Summit in detail.
So you guys should join us at the Rise Up Summit, um riseupkishoneducators.com um to hearmore about it.
But it's called Moments of Genuine Connection.
(13:29):
So the concept is this.
um You initiate, you keep track of when you have moments with each student.
You do them during the day, you're not doing this like on other times, maybe before class,after class, during a work period.
And you just have a moment, so it's brief, where you connect with that student, where youjust have a little conversation or you point out something that you noticed or you
(13:50):
encourage them.
And you just have that moment where you're connecting individually with that student.
And he recommends right down, have a roster and just put a little date when you do it andtry to get through everybody in the first, it depends how many students you have, first
couple of weeks or first month of school.
I think that's just one strategy, but I think that's a really powerful one.
(14:10):
Beki, what would you recommend?
I'm just gonna wholeheartedly agree with that.
It shows your students that you don't care about them as a grade.
They're not a grade to you, they are a person.
And so it's just really, and it takes work.
Like you need to remember, I need to remember.
right, Suzy has a baby brother now.
Hey, how'd you sleep?
Was baby brother up crying all night?
Or Joey's trying to work on an art book that he's creating on his own time just for fun.
(14:35):
And so you ask about the things that your students care about.
outside of class.
You can ask about class too, that's fine as well, but you need to demonstrate to them thatthey're not just a grade to you.
You don't just care about them because of the output of work that they do for you.
You care about them as people, and that's so important.
Yeah, and maybe on your roster, you're just jotting little notes of things so that youremember for next time.
(14:56):
Yeah, that's so powerful.
So that's just one strategy.
But yeah, building relationships is key.
Once again, doesn't pay off necessarily in September, but throughout the year, you'rereally going to notice a difference.
So number one, reduce chaos.
Number two, build relationships.
Number three, cut the confusion.
my goodness, I could talk for really long on this.
We don't have time for this.
But I really, one of the things that is so demotivating for students is that they don'tunderstand what's going on in your class.
(15:19):
And this is a tough one because
It's like, I don't know.
If you're struggling with this as a teacher, your students are definitely struggling withit.
And there's no like quick fix for it.
But I guess I will just say, if you notice that your students are really struggling tounderstand your content, you've got to figure that out.
You've got to go to mentor teachers and saying, I'm having this problem.
(15:41):
What can I do differently?
Talk to admit it.
Like, Take it on yourself to go seek that out.
Because if your students are confused either about the content you're teaching or aboutlike,
how to do a project or any of that, that is super demotivating.
And you have certain students who will rise to the challenge.
Don't fool yourself because there's, well, these students got it.
No, they're self-motivated.
(16:03):
They're the go-getters.
They're the ones that can figure it out on their own.
But there's a group of students that, I don't want say they can't figure it out on theirown, but they won't.
And so we've got to make sure that we are, our students, that they understand what we'reteaching them.
That's just so, so important.
And I would say that differentiation is so key to this reality ah in the elementary world,which is where I'm from.
(16:27):
Like we have to make sure we know kids get core content during certain parts of their day,even if you've got a fourth grader who's reading at a kindergarten level.
And that's just the reality of our system.
However, if they're only getting fourth grade content throughout their entire day and theyare reading at a kindergarten level, there is no way you can motivate them to rise to that
(16:47):
challenge.
It is
an insurmountable challenge right now.
So we have to make sure that there are times in their day where we are differentiatingdown to their current level of learning to help build them up to where they need to be.
We can't just say they have to be here, they have to be here and just teach to this level.
That's not a feasible, workable reality to create a motivated student or frankly, astudent who can learn effectively.
(17:11):
You're not teaching where they're at.
Yeah, that's such a good point.
And once again, when you put yourself in the students thought, like just imagine like whatwould it be like if I'm supposed to be like, it's like impossible.
So I was like, what can I do to make that accessible?
What can I do to cut that confusion?
Which actually brings us into number four in our framework, which is helping studentssucceed.
(17:32):
when you, I think this is so important is kind of clear.
Once again, we could talk really long on this, but basically when students experiencesuccess, they start to believe that they can do it.
And they start to, okay, I can actually do this.
I had so much happen in middle school math where students are like, I'm bad at math.
And I would say, no, you're not.
Like when you can have them, oh, I can actually do this.
So many students by the end of the year are like, I love math now.
(17:53):
I'm good at math.
Like, yeah.
So, you know, just being able to help them succeed.
And once again, this is a whole topic in and of itself, but to start doing this is justasking yourself, what do students need to do to succeed in my class?
And then asking, am I clearly articulating that to them?
I almost said, ask yourself, do students know that?
But I think that we tend to assume they do.
(18:15):
We tend to assume, yeah, they know what they need to do.
They probably don't.
If they need to study, what do they need to study?
How do they need to study?
What exactly do they need to know?
And so once again, you're great.
You're A students will figure that out on their own, but the rest, they really can useyour help.
So really helping them, making it really clear how to succeed, and then when they dosucceed, pointing it out to them.
(18:37):
Look at what you did.
Look how your hard work paid off, helping them make sure they noticed that they succeededand kind of build that muscle.
Okay, yeah, I can work hard and I can succeed in this class.
Yeah, as adults sometimes, I think it's really difficult for us to understand how italmost feels like the cause and effect connection is broken for some students.
hey, look, if you do your homework, you do better on the test.
(19:00):
Like, somehow that...
As short as that timeframe is, somehow there just isn't always a connection there.
One of the things I really love is individualized student graphs, whether the studentcreates it or you create it for them and show them to them, uh spreadsheets and Google
spreadsheets can create them for you.
They're fantastic.
But students need to be able to see like, hey, whether you do pre or post or not, buthere's my pre-test score, here's my post-test score, or here's last week's score, here's
(19:27):
this week's score.
And all of a sudden there's a much
closer relationship to the amount of work they put in and helping that graph go up.
And so having that just a little bit more concrete, again, as adults, we're like, well,the number on the paper just clearly shows what you did, but no, it doesn't.
Somehow it needs to be more concrete, more visual for a lot of learners in order to helpmotivate them.
(19:51):
And then when they see that, a lot of kids start to really own their learning and getexcited about their own graph and their own growth.
Yeah, my goodness, it's such a good point.
And I love the graph and Beki is a master at it's all things spreadsheets.
But even if you're like, my goodness, I don't think I could do that.
Just asking yourself, like, how can I make sure my students are understanding this?
Like when they get this grade, do they understand how good that is?
(20:13):
Do I need to come along?
And that's maybe even your moment of genuine connection.
Look how well you did.
I bet you studied, you know, just kind of making those connections for them.
Like you said, I love that the cause and effect is broken.
If it's not completely broken for some students, it's definitely on the struggle bus.
So yeah, just making that for them.
Okay, so much we could talk to there, but let's wrap up with number five.
(20:35):
Number five, make learning relevant and fun.
So once again, I'm not saying like, don't do this until May until you get through all therest, but my point, this is kind of the top of the pyramid.
We absolutely should make learning fun, make it relevant, but if these other things arebroken, making it learn...
fun and relevant won't fix it.
Does that make sense?
Like this is almost like the icing on the cake that makes it really great.
(20:56):
But if you only do this, you can't only make it relevant and fun to success.
But nonetheless, there is absolutely a place for this and so many things you can do tomake things fun.
Maybe we can link to our episode where we did it on how to take a worksheet and turn itinto an engaging activity, which is much more interesting than just here's your worksheet
every day.
(21:17):
um
So yeah, so much we can do here.
Anything you'd say in this part, Beki?
I would say that I think a trap some teachers fall into is lecturing students about whyit's relevant.
That's not effective.
So we know it's relevant to them, but we need to help them understand that it's relevant.
And just telling them about how it's relevant almost never works.
Yes, any quick advice on something that does work?
(21:41):
I am certainly not an expert at that particular part, especially since I feel like it's alot harder when you get into high school, even though it's closer to the reality of when
it's relevant.
But I will say the one thing I've found is helping get it out of students' mouths insteadof your own is really a helpful step.
And so asking them questions and having them articulate it, even if they don't 100 %believe it yet, it at least came out of their mouth as a step forward towards you more so
(22:07):
believing that this is important.
And so asking back and forth uh questions into, why do you think this matters, can reallyhelp them more so articulate and therefore start to believe the relevance of what we're
doing.
I love that.
Yeah, so many things here that we talked about and I hope that this has been helpful foryou guys as you think about both classroom management and motivation.
(22:28):
If you want to dive into both of these topics in more detail, like we said, we have ourback to school classroom management and motivation training.
It is our most popular training by far that we have ever done.
We did it last year and we had just a crazy response.
um So I hope that you guys will join us in for that.
It's at teach4theheart.com/training.
or if you want to just dive right into Linda, want you to help me with this step by step.
(22:51):
We actually tackle both sides, both classroom management and motivation in classroommanagement 101.
You can get more details of that at teach4theheart.com / CM 101.
And you can use the code podcast 30 to save 30 % on your enrollment.
Anything you'd add Beki as we wrap up?
I hope you'll join us, it was a lot of fun last summer.
(23:11):
Yes.
All right.
Well, thank you guys so much for being here.
All the notes and links from this episode are at teach4theheart.com / 352.
And if you enjoyed this conversation, we'd love for you to share it with a friend orcolleague.
Well, this episode has been brought to you in partnership with the Herzog Foundation.
All views and opinions are our own and don't necessarily reflect those of the HerzogFoundation.
We can't wait to be with you again soon.
In the meantime, teach you remember God is at work in you and through you, and he's usingyou to make a difference.
(23:36):
Keep your eyes on him and Teach 4 the Heart.
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