How to Help Your Students Find and Maintain Enthusiasm All Year Long

While no one wants the summer fun to end, many students are excited to come back to school. New teachers, classes, schedules, and friends can help fill students with enthusiasm the first few days back at school. However, as students fall back into the routine of school, the enthusiasm they had during the first week may fade as the weeks go by.

Many students experience a loss of excitement over the school year, especially if they’re faced with difficult lessons or subjects in their schedules. How can you keep up the enthusiasm for new and potentially challenging lessons throughout the entire school year? Keeping these three tips in mind is a good start:

1. Provide new and memorable learning experiences.

Many students feel bored or uninterested when there is stagnation in your teaching or lessons. Switch up your style once in a while to keep your students engaged in their learning. Consider setting up different stations around your classroom and have your students rotate from one to another. Stations can help move learning forward, promote student agency, and create individualized learning opportunities.

2. Celebrate student success.

It’s easy to become discouraged when a student experiences failure over and over. Repeated failures mean that a student may shut down completely and give up. Make sure to spend some time and celebrate the accomplishments of your students starting early on in the school year. Remind them how far they’ve come in their learning rather than how much they have left to go. This blog post is all about Marzano-researched best practices for student encouragement and feedback.

3. Embrace a growth mindset.

Research has shown that a growth mindset is key for students to advance in their learning. Be sure to emphasize to your students that intelligence is like a muscle—something that can be developed, trained, and strengthened over time. Here are five tips to develop a growth mindset in your classroom.

Each school is full of learning, growing, and most importantly, having fun! You have the power to provide your students with positivity, support, and the right mix of learning experiences to enhance their learning and help take their knowledge to the next level.

Looking for more resources to help support your students? Check out these tips for helping students analyze thier own data!

This blog was originally published August 2018 by Brita Hammer and has been updated.