A teacher plays a significant role in shaping our children and enhancing their success rates. How do they do that? By motivating the students to want to improve and making them believe that they can excel. How do they motivate their students? By showing appreciation.
Appreciation is, in fact, the most effective positive student motivator. Celebrating student success and rewarding even their smallest achievements through recognition certificates and student of the week awards have a tremendously powerful impact on student morale and classroom engagements.
We have put together a few simple, inspiring, and uplifting ways of intentionally celebrating your students while creating a positive classroom community.
Genuine Verbal Praise
It is the easiest way to celebrate and motivate your students.
If a student is struggling with a class project, give them an encouraging pep talk. Verbally praise the students who worked hard to improve in a particular subject or complete an assignment. You can do it individually or in front of the entire class.
When praising a student verbally, try to be specific. Point out the actions they took contributing to their success. So, when a student impresses you with their English project, instead of saying, “Great job,” say, “I loved how you described the protagonist using the character’s actions.”
Student of the Week Ritual
Create a student of the week board for your classroom. It will give you a space to recognize your students’ efforts, creativity, and improvements.
When you honor students not just for their academic achievements but also for other strengths, you ensure their holistic development.
A student who follows all the classroom rules, a student who always finishes his/her work on time, a student who is always respectful and polite to their classmates- choose different criteria to name your ‘student of the week.’ You can also give recognition certificates along with the honor.
Peer Recognition Activity
Recognition from a peer is a highly effective form of recognition.
You can have a “Strength Circle” activity for your students to motivate and uplift them. All you need are a few envelopes and blank pieces of paper. Give each student an envelope with blank paper inside and ask them to write their names on their envelope. Gather in a circle. Students will pass their envelopes around, and each one will write one strength of their peers in their respective envelopes.
Putting Their Work on the Classroom Display Board
Displaying student work in your class is a wonderful way of celebrating all the efforts they put into the work. Having their work displayed for the entire class boosts the students’ self-worth and self-confidence.
Whenever you display a student’s work, give them an achievement certificate, so they have something to take back home. So, if a student did a nice job on a geography project, give them a Certificate of Recognition achievement certificate.
Final Words
Celebrate students for improvement rather than perfection. While handing our recognition certificates and selecting students of the week, make it a point to be intentionally inclusive. Appreciate not just the academically gifted students but also those who exhibit hard work and creativity and show improvement.
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