3. Orientation and Visual Materials

As already mentioned, according to the Self-determination theory (SDT), relatedness and competence play a big role in motivating students. We now want to move from relatedness to competence and take a look at the importance of students’ feeling of competence. How could teachers focus on that at the beginning of the lesson? It is known that students with intrinsic motivation are more likely to study longer and more persistently. When students are well-oriented and interested in the subject they are more likely to feel themselves competent. At the beginning of the lesson, orientation and stirring up students’ intrinsic motivation can be done with visual materials like pictures or videos. They are easy to find and combine with almost any topic. A picture related to the topic of the lesson and a good story behind it is often very popular among the students.

At the beginning of the lesson, orientation and stirring up students’ intrinsic motivation can be done with visual materials like pictures or videos.

Visual motivation at the beginning of every lesson is not a new idea. Sometimes old ideas can be very useful especially if they are simple enough to be carried out in a daily life. The picture should have an angle on the topic of the lesson that is interesting or maybe even humorous. The most simple way is to draw the picture into the blackboard as motivation. It doesn’t matter if the teacher has skipped art lessons: the most modest drawings bring good humor and laughter among students. One way is to play Pictionary with students: Can you guess the topic of the day?

The picture should have an angle on the topic of the lesson that is interesting or maybe even humorous.

Another good way of waking up students’ interest is telling stories. Story telling is one of the oldest methods for humans to transfer knowledge and myths for the younger generations. Students still love listening to narratives and especially if the teacher is able to tell stories based on their own experiences. Listening to a good story while seeing a related picture creates relaxing atmosphere and guides students into the new topic. They don’t even notice they are already learning.

Task 3

Think about the subjects and topics that you like to teach. Make a list of these.
What kind of motivating pictures or videos you already have found? Could you find more on these topics?

Task 4

Think about the topics you find difficult to teach and get students attention with? Make a list of these.
Is there any interesting visual angle to be found and to be attached to these topics? If not, could you build a bridge from previous themes and find some visual effects for this. For example Wikipedia is often a good place to find pictures because almost all of the pictures are free and fast to use.

Task 5

Once you find a picture: Think about opening questions to ask:
What do you think is happening in this picture? What do you think has happened before?
What kind of an atmosphere is there?
What do you think people represent in here? (Are they happy or sad? Rich or poor?)
What do they wear? Can you say something about their life?
What kind of feelings do you get from the picture?
Is there any symbols or colors that the students recognize?
At the end you can explain a few important findings from the picture and underline the facts

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