Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Student motivation...or a lack thereof

Recently, I have started conducting some of my office hours in my institution's tutoring center.  The reason for this change in my normal schedule is the hope that I can provide greater assistance to people enrolled in our chemistry courses.

The result of this effort, unfortunately, has been no change from conducting my office hours in my office.  Students just do not seem to seek out assistance.  I'm sure there have probably been studies about this phenomenon, but I just can't see how we, as educators, can create motivation.  Don't get wrong, I try extremely hard to make my lectures engaging as well as provide my students with resources that run the gamut of Bloom's Taxonomy.  The priorities of my students, though, seem to be focused on everything besides getting help.

I have to wonder how student services professionals or faculty can really engage students in the face of such apathy.