Instructors have to have a grasp on what motivates their students at the core of their purpose as well as to stay enrolled in the program. Before any instructor is going to be successful in appealing to their student’s motivation, the instructor has to demonstrate their own motivation. This motivation should focus on their own enthusiasm for their being a leader and the facilitator of the course, class, and content. For an instructor to achieve retention it is necessary to apply motivational techniques that inspire learning the information and the skills the student originally sought to achieve.
Too often students lose sight of why they committed to what has become a strenuous and tedious course of study. The stress of such a commitment be it professional, social and or economic can suppress motivation to the degree of a student becoming depressed. An instructor must have keen instincts to read the emotional cues to not only allow the student to avoid such a crisis, but to more importantly contain this so it does not spread throughout the entire class. This perception does not happen by reading a couple of paragraphs, it is an instinct that is built on an ability to be empathetic as well as sympathetic to a student’s inner-feelings, the most of which drive motivation.
