MOTIVATIONAL APPROACH TO TEACHING MATHEMATICS IN BACHELOR AND MASTER STUDY

Motivation is the engine of every human activity. Much attention is paid to the motivation especially in the psychology of work. If we look at the strategy of successful companies, we find that their management are trying to incorporate complex mechanisms to encourage their employees to give maximum performance. If we look at the teaching of mathematics, where the teacher works in a similar role as the company management, we find that these methods are usually not used.

There are many reasons why the performance of the students is not satisfactory, but the vast majority of students suffer from a lack of motivation. In mathematics more emphasis is placed on content than on form. Hence mathematics for students becomes incomprehensible and unattractive subject. One possibility to change the attitudes of students is the use of motivational incentives.

In this paper we provide strategies for stimulating students to learn course content. We mention some well known motivation techniques that can be used to affect the students' attitude to learning mathematics. Most important contribution to increasing the motivation of students is the attitude of the teacher. We provide several effective motivation principles that we use in our teaching practice.