INSPIRATION: TEACHER’S ABILITY TO INSPIRE THEIR STUDENTS

INSPIRATION: TEACHER’S ABILITY TO INSPIRE THEIR STUDENTS

Abstract. This article talks about inspiring teachers, about their enthusiasm, and their commitment in the classroom, different approaches of educators about inspiration, how an inspiring teacher creates a positive classroom climate. Studies have proved that the inspiring teacher is important to the academic process.

This article emphasizes the characteristics of inspiring teachers, how they should have good behavior management skills, care for student’s learning and well-being, develop and reinforce positive relationships with students to provide their academic success.

To achieve our aim, we used the test method to reveal how inspired and motivated the students are. The main goal is to emphasize the importance of inspiration and inspiring teacher in the researcher’s academic progress.

As a result, we found out that it is easier to inspire student at his/her early age, and the student to be inspired and motivated, always needs verbal praise to prepare the lesson with enthusiasm, get satisfactory results, and achieve an academic success.

Keywords: Inspiration, Inspiring teaching, inspiring teacher, inspired student, characteristics of inspiring teachers, academic achievement, purposeful learning.

What is inspiration?

Inspiration is an experience with which we are all familiar. We are inspired when insights or ideas imbue a task with a sense of necessity and excitement. We are inspired when a mentor or role model reveals new possibilities that we would not have recognized on our own. We are inspired when a sense of beauty, truth, or the divine moves us to pursue a goal more important than the mundane concerns that often occupy our minds [6, pp. 871-889]

Inspiration is a positive motivational state that can be a key experience in figuring out self-concordant goals and personal strivings. Inspiration is thus conceptualized as a particularly salient emotional and motivational state that is experienced when content in any domain, be it spiritual, creative, interpersonal, etc. aligns with one’s internalized values and interests.

Inspiration is a motivational state experienced when self-transcending or other-praising emotions are triggered by a value-congruent stimulus and activate a desire to express or enact a value-congruent goal [3, 113p].

Inspiration is not just any old disturbance but takes the form of a command from the other; inspiration it is “subjection to an order before understanding the order.” The command from the other, as a command, comes before one understands what it concretely requires [4, 13p].

Methods and results

In our work, we used observation, conversation, and case studies. We studied the teacher’s ability to inspire their students. The main purpose is to find out how much the students are inspired by learning and how it affects on their learning process.

The 80 students of one of the schools in Egypt have answered the 7 questions that were prepared by us, choosing the answers “yes” or “no”.

The questions are:

1. Do you believe that the classroom is a pleasant learning environment?
2. Do you often complete your assignments?
3. Do you love and respect your teachers?
4. Would you expect the teacher to evaluate you?
5. Do you listen carefully to your teacher’s explanation, ask questions, and share your ideas?
6. Do you often get high scores?
7. Do you like to take part in group activities, and do you bring participation to your work?

 

 

Discussion

As we mentioned before, these questions aim to find out how much the students are inspired by learning.

Thus, the result of the completed test of the students for the first question, 76.2% of the 15- age group, the classroom is a pleasant environment for learning, while for the 17-age group, we notice indifference, because it is not pleasant for a student of a third millennium to sit in the classroom for hours and listen to the teacher’s explanation. They prefer new and pleasant places and atmosphere for learning, with new, innovative methods.

In the second question, the result of the 15-age group prevails, according to which 61.9% often do their assignments, and only 20% of those belonging to the 17-age group do them, among whom we again notice indifference and carelessness towards studies. We saw that for the 17-year-old age group, the classroom is not a pleasant place for learning, thus, they do not fulfill the tasks entrusted to them.

In the third question, 58.3% of the 14-year-old group have respect and love for their teacher, while the 17-year-old group has almost do no have such feeling.

Fourth, 79.2% of the 14-year-old group expect the teacher to evaluate them, while only 30% of the 16-year-old group have expectations. A 14-year-old student has a higher success rate than a 16-year-old student, because the younger the student is, the more pleasant it is for him to wait for the teacher’s appreciation for the success of the most insignificant work.

Fifth, 70.8% of the 14-year-old age group carefully listens to the teacher’s explanation, asks questions, and exchanges ideas, unlike the 16-year-olds, whose percentage results show that only 15% pay attention in the classroom, because they have lack of sleep, for providing hours to their online games.

The result of the sixth survey, as we can see in the chart, the number of high scorers are naturally those belonging to the 15-age group, for whom the classroom is a pleasant environment and unlike 16 and 17-year-olds, they often complete the tasks entrusted to them, listen carefully to the teacher and they are interested.

According to the seventh survey, the predominant result is the 15-year-old age group, 71.4%, who like to take part in group work and to participate in the class.

We concluded that the role of inspiration in getting knowledge is significant at younger age. It is quite easy to inspire and motivate a student when he/she is young. The older he/she gets and becomes an adolescent, the more difficult it is to inspire and motivate him/her. It is easy to inspire and motivate a young child by making the teacher happy with various kinds of games, group work, individual or group competitions, giving words of appreciation, or a certificate.

For years, we saw student’s behavior, and through heart-to-heart discussion we have tried to inspire and motivate them to carry out achievement in the learning process. The aim of this case is to show that suggestive teacher can implement everything regarded to students’ academic life.

A case study is a research approach that is used to generate an in-depth, multi-faceted understanding of a complex issue in its real-life context. It is an established research design that is used extensively in a wide variety of disciplines, particularly in the social sciences. A case study can be defined in a variety of ways, the central tenet being the need to explore an event or phenomenon in depth and in its natural context. It is for this reason sometimes referred to as a «naturalistic» design; this is in contrast to an «experimental» design (such as a randomized controlled trial) in which the investigator seeks to exert control over and manipulate the variable(s) of interest [2, 9p].

We have observed student’s behavior and tried to encourage them to inspire positive motivation towards learning. In this article, we found it appropriate presenting the story of a student to show more complete data about the entire research in our article.

This case is the story of “S”, a 14-year-old Armenian girl in Egypt’s Armenian school who was the weakest student in the class in the Armenian language, despite being Armenian, for certain reasons.

On several occasions, when she received verbal praises for her correct writing, such as «I know you can do better» or «you wrote better this time, keep it up… «, «I appreciate your hard work» and other motivational and inspiring expressions, «S» began to treat the Armenian language seriously, putting in more effort, gradually she developed her knowledge of the Armenian language.

A demotivated student always needs appreciation and support to be inspired and to be motivated.

Inspiring teacher and inspired student

The key aspect of being an inspiring teacher is having a passion for the profession and being able to send that enthusiasm, either for learning or for a particular subject, to their students.

A characteristic feature of inspiring teachers is that they are flexible and adapt their teaching according to their student’s need.

Inspiring teachers, as well as being knowledgeable, also bring innovation into their practice and use new, modern approaches to teaching.

Williams Louise, Nixon Sarah, Hennessy, Mahon Elizabeth, and Adams Gill (2016) in their work discussed about the inspiring teaching that is about taking risks, trying out innovative approaches, experimenting with old ones and looking critically at what happens [7, 12p].

Sammons Pam, Kington Alison, Lindorff Ariel, and Ortega Lorena (2014) are referred to the inspiring teachers as particularly strong in creating a positive classroom climate, and particularly in their assessment and evaluation of student’s learning, their classroom management and providing clarity of instruction.

They are identified as strong motivators for future aspirations, not just immediate effort, or engagement.

Sammons Pam, Kington Alison, Lindorff Ariel, and Ortega Lorena (2014) underlined the characteristics of inspiring teachers.

1. Having and transmitting enthusiasm.
2. Cultivating positive relationship with students.
3. Being flexible and adapting their practice.
4. Making learning purposeful and relevant for students.
5. Promoting a safe and stimulating classroom climate.
6. Establishing clear and positive classroom management.
7. Being reflective about their own practice and developing collaboratively.
8. Bringing innovation to the classroom.

Inspiring teachers regarded the following aspects as the most important for their practice:

1. Enthusiasm for teaching.
2. Positive relationships and commitment.
3. Confidence in the classroom.

What do inspiring teachers do in the classroom?

1. Creates a positive, safe, and supportive climate for learning.
2. Manages behavior, space, time, and resources efficiently and effectively.
3. Implements clear instruction, including explicit and elevated expectations and aims for learning.
4. They have good behavior management skills and efficient use of learning time.
5. They have skillful use of questioning and feedback to make lessons, highly interactive and extend learning.
6. Use informal approaches to meet individual student needs.
7. Promote prominent levels of student engagement and motivation through varied learning activities and arrangements.
8. Looks for and honors student choice and input.
9. Uses a wide variety of activities or approaches over the course of a lesson.
10. Shows important levels of commitment and care for student’s learning and well-being.
11. Develops and reinforces positive relationships with students [5, 144p].

Inspired and empowered students were found to be more likely to engage themselves in the educational process and complete their work on time. They are found to be ready for mentoring, filled with self-confidence and excitement.

Research now shows that one of the main characteristics of the inspired students is that they are mostly self-directed learners.

Inspiring students means that teacher need to reach deeper levels of understanding where students must be able to construct meaning out of a purposeful combination of their experiences and academic materials [1, pp. 785-797]

Conclusion

Research suggests that inspiration, teachers’ inspiration, and their ability to inspire the students is the most key factor to motivate student to face the present century difficulties. Only the inspiring teacher can create enthusiasm, can inspire, and motivate his student to be responsible in and outside the classroom, to be a good listener, lifelong learner, and a good man of the future.

Student inspiration and educational achievement depends on the teacher. Only an inspiring teacher can create a positive climate for learning, care for student’s learning and academic process, honors student choice, uses innovative methods for learning, and makes learning purposeful.

As a result, we concluded that the role of inspiration in getting knowledge is significant at younger age. It is extremely easy to inspire and motivate a student when he is young.

Research suggests that motivational and inspiring expressions can affect on student’s learning process, can inspire them, and encourages them to believe in their abilities of becoming better learners.

References

1. Buheji M. In Search of Inspired Student-Measuring of Youth Inspiration in High School-A youth Economy Paper, 2017, pp. 785-797.
2. Crowe S., Cresswell K., Robertson A., Huby G., Avery A., Sheikh A. The case study approach. BMC Med Res Methodol. 2011 Jun 27;11:100. doi: 10.1186/1471-2288-11-100. PMID: 21707982; PMCID: PMC3141799.
3. Jennings David II Inspiration: Examining its Emotional Correlates and Relationship to Internalized Values, 2012, 113 p., https://doi.org/10.25772/6XDJ-0987
4. Joldersma Clarence W., The Importance of Enjoyment, and Inspiration for Learning from a Teacher, 2007, 1^st,13 p.
5. Sammons P., Kington A., Lindorff A., Ortega L., Inspiring Teachers: Perspectives and Practices, January 2014, 144p., http://www.cfbt.com/research
6. Thrash Todd M, Elliot Andrew J. Inspiration as a Psychological Construct, 2003, pp. 871-889, DOI: 1037/0022-3514.84.4.871
7. Williams L. et al. Inspiring to Inspire: Developing Teaching in Higher Education, March 2016, 12p.

https://doi.org/10.1080/2331186X.2016.1154259