Ways+to+Motivate+Students

One of the main principles of UDL is to provide **multiple means of engagement**. This is because learners differ in the ways they can be engaged and motivated to learn. This page contains UDL strategies, practical suggestions, and examples that will help you find different ways to motivate your students.


 * **Strategy** || **Practical Application** || **Example** ||
 * Give students options when selecting assignment topics || * Allow your students to pick a topic that relates to a particular theme within your course
 * Ask your students what topics they are interested in || Example and additional information. ||
 * Help students see relevance in course content || * Help your students discover how the skills and knowledge learned in your course will benefit them in their everyday lives
 * //This is especially important for students with unrelated majors//
 * Share with your students how professions in the real-world utilize the skills learned in your course || Example and additional information. ||
 * Create authentic learning activities || * Design or redesign projects to mimic real-life situations
 * Require students to communicate with real audiences
 * Allow students to connect with the community and HCC peers outside of their class
 * Create problem and inquiry based learning activities || Example and additional information. ||
 * Vary activities and sources of information || * Continuously change the format and activities of your face-to-face courses
 * Use different topics and sources of information so they can be:
 * Culturally and socially relevant
 * Age and ability relevant
 * Appropriate for different racial, cultural, ethnic, and gender groups || Example and additional information. ||
 * Provide activities that promote active participation || * Embed questions throughout your lectures to gauge student understanding
 * Use audience response tools such as Socrative and Clickers
 * Break students into small groups to collaborate on assignments or tasks
 * Schedule classroom debates || Example and additional information. ||
 * Provide students opportunities for self-assessment || * Require students to share questions they have about course content
 * Write questions down before leaving class
 * Include a reflection element with class assignments/projects
 * Create non-graded practice quizzes for students to complete at home
 * Students come in with questions the following class period || Example and additional information. ||
 * Provide feedback that is timely, specific, and frequent || * Provide students with specific examples of what they need to work on
 * Provide examples of what the student is doing well
 * Try to provide students with feedback as soon as possible || Example and additional information. ||
 * Resource to Measure Student Interest/Approach to Learning || Article with background, scoring information and student survey to evaluate student interests and personal approach to learning. || [|ASSIST Instrument] ||

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