7 Strategies and Motivational Techniques for Students to Boost Learning
Learn more about how to use strategies and techniques to motivate your students year-round.
Learn more about how to use strategies and techniques to motivate your students year-round.
Whether you’re teaching 6th grade, 2nd grade, or 11th Grade, learning how to motivate your students can be an impactful way to boost learner engagement. Every classroom experience can be different. Because of this, our Summit K12 team of former educators, school administrators, and school staff came up with a variety of motivational techniques for students to meet every learner where they are. Read on to learn more about how to motivate your students year-round.
Motivation for students is personal. According to Education Week, “80% of educators believe student motivation has declined, while learners feel only 38% feel their motivations have lowered.” Naturally, tapping into what drives each individual learner can be a challenge, but once you realize their strengths, it’s amazing how you can fuel classroom engagement.
If you’re looking for some new ways or ideas to motivate your students, consider the following:
-Learn Their Interests: Use what students love, sports, music, animals, as hooks in lessons. For more on personalized learning, click here.
-Celebrate Who They Are: Highlight individual strengths, talents, and growth.
-Be Their Champion: Let them know you believe in them, even on tough days.
-Use Goal Setting: Help students create and track personal goals; they’re more motivated when they can see their progress.
-Give Consistent, Positive Feedback: Focus on effort, improvement, and problem-solving, not just outcomes.
-Turn Learning into a Game: Use Kahoot, scavenger hunts, or point systems.
-Incorporate Friendly Competition: Teams or challenges can boost energy and collaboration.
-Reward Effort, Not Just Results: Recognize grit, creativity, and perseverance.
-Offer Choices: Let students decide how they demonstrate mastery—projects, videos, stories, etc.
-Make Learning Relevant: Connect lessons to real-world problems or their daily lives.
-Use Student Voice: Invite students to co-create classroom norms or pick topics for writing or research.
-Make Success Feel Achievable: Break big goals into small wins.
-Create a Safe, Encouraging Environment: Students engage when they feel secure and valued.
-Model Passion: If you’re excited about learning, they will be too.
1. Build Strong Relationships: Take the time to get to know each student—their interests, backgrounds, learning styles, and aspirations. Use that insight to personalize your instruction and interactions.
2. Set High Expectations—and Believe in Them: Clearly communicate that you believe in each student’s potential. When students know you expect excellence, they often rise to meet it.
3. Celebrate Progress, Not Just Perfection: Recognize growth, effort, and improvement. This keeps students motivated even when mastery is still in progress.
4. Incorporate Student Interests into Lessons: Use sports, music, art, or pop culture as hooks to draw students into content they might otherwise find dry.
5. Provide Choices: Giving students options on how they learn or demonstrate their understanding builds autonomy and engagement.
6. Lean on your team: Partnering with other teachers can help with your workflow and bandwidth, while also providing more support for your students. For more on team-based teaching, read here.
7. Finding and using games: Students don’t even realize they're learning, because they're having so much fun.
When learners feel connected and understood, their whole outlook on learning can change. Our team weighed in on the importance and impact of student motivation in the classroom.
“I found that when students were motivated, whether through something simple like a personal interest or a classroom challenge, they showed up differently. They engaged more in discussions, encouraged their peers, and took ownership of their learning. Motivation creates a classroom culture where students believe they can succeed and want to help others succeed too,” states Jordan Campbell, Summit K12 Director of Marketing, Former Elementary School Teacher
“It’s human nature to engage with what we care about. Students need to see why this information is useful or important to them. Showing students the “why” created motivation which then gets students to complete the task,” says Linda Marichal, Summit K12 Event Marketing Manager, Former Elementary School Teacher, Science Coach, and Science Coordinator
Also, there’s a level of risk when it comes to student motivation. Every classroom experience can be different. Students need to know they’re in a classroom environment where it’s okay to explore options, make mistakes, ask questions, and see what’s out there. They need to know if they say, “Hey, I like this,” they won’t be judged or looked down upon. So, motivation is highly personal, and it can take time to build that trust among students and teachers.
Student choice, classroom economy, and creative expression are just some of the examples that stand out for our former teachers, Marichal and Campbell. Consider the following below:
Giving students a choice of how to complete the assignment: Some students are creative and would rather create something to show their learning, while others would rather write out their learning. Choice creates motivation!
"Lunch Bunch" with the Teacher: A reward where students could eat lunch with a teacher, play games, or talk about their lives—this built relationships and motivated positive behavior.
Learning Choice Boards: Students love being able to choose how they demonstrated their knowledge—write a song, design a poster, create a skit, etc.
Classroom Economy: Students earn "class bucks" for effort, collaboration, and creativity, which they could spend in our classroom store.
Marichal chimes in, “I loved to read stories aloud! I would read highly engaging books to my class regularly. I would tell them if they can get this task completed we can read another chapter in our book. They would work to get the task done quickly so we could hear the next adventures!”
Whether you incorporate motivational strategies like game-based learning, student choice, or interest-based learning, all paths can help give you an opportunity to reach more students. Remember to give yourself grace, as it may take time, but the long-term impact can be seen in and outside the classroom doors.
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