Motivated students more apt to learn something

By Hendra Gunawan

BANDUNG (JP): I could try to teach my dog how to whistle, but I guess -- however hard I tried -- my dog would not learn. I could not then call it teaching, could I? If it was teaching, then it should be categorized as bad teaching.

Everybody would agree that the main task of a school teacher is to teach. But what is teaching for? Is it just to fulfill the task? Or is it for transferring knowledge or information to students, as many people would say? What if the students do not learn at all?

Teaching, in the sense of transferring information, is a relatively easy job. What is more difficult is to make students learn, process and do something with the information presented to them, and think about it further.

So, the main question is not what is taught or how sophisticatedly it is taught, but should be: do the students learn or not? Teaching is a waste of time if students do not learn anything.

Good teaching should make students learn. Moreover, it should encourage students to learn by themselves, even when teaching is not taking place. Student learning is the main activity, and so students -- not teachers -- must become the main actors.

If students were eager to learn, then there would be no need to teach at all. We could provide them with books or material and let them learn by themselves.

Unfortunately, it is rare to find students like this. In most cases, we are faced with students who would not automatically learn if we did not do something to make them learn.

One says that students learn if motivated. Motivation is the key to student learning. Some students might have intrinsic motivation, but most of them do not. In most cases, there is no other choice but to motivate them. But how?

There are many things that can motivate students to learn. Some students might be motivated if they are afraid or threatened. A student will study hard if he or she fears some untoward consequence of failing. Parental pressure often causes such fear. Fear is a great motivator, but -- beware -- it can also become counterproductive. One thing is for sure, it is not wise for a teacher to instill fear into a student's heart.

Some students will be motivated to learn if they need to know the material, for instance if they are told that it will be included in the next test. However, learning is not just about passing tests.

Many students will also be motivated to learn if they experience success in their learning, in understanding a concept or doing things that they learn. In most cases, students who have failed once will be reluctant to continue for fear of future failure. Thus, experiencing success in learning is important.

However, it will be better if students are motivated to learn because they perceive the material to be relevant or they can relate the material to their life experience, or -- the best of all -- because they find the material interesting.

Hence the very first thing a teacher should do when he or she is teaching is to motivate students to learn, for instance by showing them that the material is relevant or interesting. As Donald Norman put it in his 1993 book Things That Make Us Smart: "... the trick in teaching is to entice and motivate the student into excitement and interest in the topic ..."

Of course, a teacher should have adequate mastery of the material. But then he or she should also know its relevance or -- whenever possible -- what is interesting about it.

It is not hard, for example, to find music interesting. But do we know what is interesting about mathematics? For some people, mathematics is needed, and interesting too. To know that the material is interesting, we need -- for instance -- to read and find out more about it.

Knowing a little about the history of mathematics often helps in having something interesting to tell our students.

To summarize, the main task of a school teacher is nothing but to facilitate students' learning. Motivation turns out to be the key, and so the problem is how to motivate students to learn.

Once students are motivated, one can start presenting basic concepts and information, giving exercises and providing enough time for exploration and reflection. One may then expect that students will learn something. That is what teaching is for.

The writer is a lecturer at the School of Mathematics of Bandung Institute of Technology.