One of the primary goals of theatre education is to make students life-long learners, motivated by internal drives to know, do, and accomplish. The use of intrinsic motivators, i.e., motivation techniques that cultivate belief in the integral value of learning, is central to fostering a student's self-direction in theatre. Extrinsic motivators, e.g., grades and motivating strategies that do not directly communicate how and why theatre is valuable, can be useful teaching aids; however, they can be over-used and have the tendency to draw students' attention away from the lasting benefits of studying theatre. The following instructional strategies are intended to help theatre teachers cultivate intrinsic motivation techniques in their classrooms.

Make theatre study personally relevant

• Find ways to incorporate students' personal experiences, social concerns, and cultures into lessons. Conversely, relate theatre content identified in the Theatre TEKS to life beyond the classroom.
• Discuss the reasons for activities with the class, explaining how specific tasks fit into the structure of the discipline as a whole. In addition, make connections to previous learning experiences in theatre.
• Provide opportunities for collaboration among students to promote their understanding of how participation in group activities relates to their communication skills and to the learning of their peers.
• Share experiences with students that show how and why theatre is personally meaningful to you—their teachers, administrators, and community members.

Foster creative thinking and learning

• Ask questions and pose problems that encourage diverse approaches to theatrical problem solving and that stimulate creative thinking.
• Introduce new and challenging materials in class and encourage experimentation.
• Engage students' curiosity by designing activities that have unpredictable outcomes.

Teach independence, responsibility, and self-direction

• Give students choices, within the structure of the Theatre TEKS, of what and how they learn. Involve students in the process of planning lessons when appropriate.
• Teach students to take responsibility for their own learning in theatre classes. Correspondingly, create theatre environments that support multiple learning styles and academic risk-taking.
• Scaffold knowledge and skills, as demonstrated in the Theatre TEKS, to build students' confidence, enabling them to face increasingly difficult learning experiences in their theatre studies. Set challenging, achievable goals to encourage success and increase the challenges as students’ confidence and trust grow.

Practice constructive assessment

• Help students recognize quality work in theatre by using evaluation criteria developed over time and by modeling the use of criteria in a variety of formats.
• Give specific evaluative feedback that considers students' learning over time and that helps students recognize their own strengths and weaknesses. Encourage students to evaluate their own performance and search for ways to improve.
• Be sure there are tight connections between demonstrated student achievement and the instructional sequence, teaching practices, and course content.

Recognize and document student achievement

• Document growth of students' knowledge and skills by encouraging them to keep journals, notebooks, or portfolios of their ideas, performances, and achievements.
• Organize performances of student work in the classroom, school and community.