Research has determined that approximately forty-three percent of students’ performance in schools can be attributed to their motivation to achieve academically. While the prevalence of research on students’ academic motivation is prevalent, few teachers understand its importance in determining students’ academic achievement, and therefore teachers have not focused on motivating their students to learn. This is of particular import in K-12 education and especially in science technology engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects. Teachers most often focus on pedagogical strategies that may ignore the role that motivation plays in students’ learning. Importantly, students’ motivation is not at all associated with that which has been described as “laziness.” Rather, motivation is tied to students’ interests, engagement, their ability to stick with subject matter in the face of adversity, and various socially mediated aspects of learning. Teachers must find ways to motivate the students that they teach to engage them in subject matter so that they will learn, especially in the STEM subjects, where engagement is critical and where academic rigor is of profound importance. This paper and its presentation addresses strategies to engage and motivate middle and high school students. It pertains to a teacher professional development program in which teachers were taught such practices and then used them in their classrooms. Results of this research indicate that once taught motivational strategies specific to STEM subjects, teachers will use them and their students will do better in the subject academically.

Keywords: Teaching, student motivation, engagement in STEM.