Week 8-What makes students motivated?

     Lessons that go really well for me in my class are those that are very interactive and hands-on. For example, we are studying landforms and reading topographic maps. While reading the text, students were unsure about some of the landforms and how they would be represented as a topographic map. To illustrate how different landforms could be shown through contour lines depicting elevation, I brought in play dough for each pod to build a mountain, then slice off layers to create contour lines. Once students made their own contour lines and traced them, they were able to see how a mountain would indeed look like the topographic we see in our textbook.  Students worked collaboratively and were exciting to discover. Even students who typically do not participate took leader roles in this activity.
     Students also interact well with technology. During the same lesson, students identified landforms and put together processes in order to recognize the types of destructive and constructive forces that shape our landforms. Student participation improved and attention was focused on the interactive lesson rather than fiddling with desks, sharpening pencils, bathroom trips, etc. I wonder what makes technology and hands-on activities so appealing to students in comparison to reading material?  Students interact with the world daily as well as encounter technology in our ever-changing world, so why would these things motivate students above the traditional method? How can we find ways to keep this motivation throughout the school day without always having a large project or interactive?
     However, I do realize that the activity mentioned  was mainly used to reinforce an idea rather than to teach it directly. I also understand that this is not possible, or even feasible for all aspects of teaching. At some point, very important and valuable information can be found and learned from textbooks and other text sources. This becomes the heart of our teaching because it becomes very time consuming and labor-intensive to set up explorations in every single subject, every single day. I think it is important to find a balance between depending on texts and searching for exploratory and guided discovery. Both have a place in the classroom.
      During my observation with my liaison, we discussed how important it was for students to be able to work independently or in groups without relying on the entire class to read all text orally. However, being in a class of 26 where almost half are recognized as "struggling readers" in a co-teach reading classroom, it becomes important to ensure all students have access to that information even if the text is not on their instructional level. This may bore some students, so I am currently searching for a way to improve my practice where students receive the text read orally as they need during instructional time, but still have a chance to feel confident, successful, and capable of learning, which I know that they all are.