During my math unit I had several students come up to be showing me their work or questions earlier than the time of the lesson. They were really interested in showing me their work. I really admired how several students said that they wanted to learn and then told me what they wanted to learn. In the 4th grade they acknowledged that they wanted to learn. Teachers need to realize that students are kids, they are young people that are being introduced constantly to new things in this world and our job as teachers is to make what we teach interesting so they want to learn what we teach.
Making lessons culturally relevant or conducive to students' interests allows them to be intrinsically motivated to learn. However much extrinsic motivation works, I think that students learn and transfer, or apply rather the skills and information they are learning when they are intrinsically motivated to learn. Having self-efficacy then can occur and students will ultimately take control of their learning, leading them to explicitly or implicitly act in such a way that provides themselves with more opportunities to learn. Seeing this occur, when students independently act in such a way that benefits their expansion of knowledge, is when I believe teachers have made a profound impact on that specific student's life.
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