beyond grades: what more drives the feeling of success in a professor?

I can bet that every professor out there wants their students to be successful in the program they are enrolled for. More specifically they would want students to be successful in the course they are teaching. Is that all that matters for professors to feel successful themselves - the grades that students get in that course?

I believe not. For me additionally two things that bring in a feeling of motivation (a topic just covered in my class!) is the engagement and curiosity that students exhibit in the course. Ideally it would be seen across the entire class, but practically even some of the students showing these behaviours helps a lot. This helps when, at certain times, there is a situation in class which may demotivate the professor a lot. A few incidents helped me plough forward recently.

One incident is related to a situation where I had to refuse entry to a student A who came in late to the class. This situation was highlighted by one of the other students B later in the course when we were discussing the concept of cognitive dissonance. This student B brought up the situation and connected it with the fact that I had at the outset declared being empathetic towards students’ side of challenges in the MBA. He indicated that the fact that I probably had to struggle with the dissonance between my attitude (towards students perspective) and the actual behaviour (denying entry) was difficult for me and I might have had to reframe my attitude based on this behaviour to achieve harmony. The impact on A was that he took it seriously and has never been late to class so far. I liked the application of a concept to something that happened in front of everyone - something that I always keep doing in the class by connecting concepts with things that happen in their context of the MBA. It felt good to see the engagement in this incident. Another incident was when after the completion of the topic of motivation one of the students came over to ask me how this concept can be used back home where his family was struggling with the staff in their restaurant and getting them to behave (absenteeism, turnover etc). We did talk about some quick off the cuff steps he could relay back home, but the curiosity to apply and use the concepts was what hit me positively. Even when one of the students asked me after a case discussion - “so in this subject we only discuss problems and have no solutions?!” it gave me a good feel (though it was difficult to drive home the point that in human behaviour there is no “one” solution) that the engagement is there. When one student brought in the issue of neurodiversity and asked how those individuals would map with the popular personality assessments, a question I had no ready answer for, it again indicated the curiousity in the student about the topic. Or when someone raised the issue of Maslow’s hierarchy and age - whether there was a clear connection with age and the level. Again, something which I had to go back and look up, indicated curiousity with the topic.?

These seemingly small incidents, some challenging, some exciting, clearly came together to help me overcome demotivation when I saw some sleepyheads or underprepared students in the class and consequently was pushed to the edge. They reminded me to continue to move towards my purpose in the classroom, even if it might not be seen in the majority.?

What motivates you in your course?