What motivates students in classrooms? It’s one of those $64,000 questions -- of interest because we so often see what doesn’t motivate students in classrooms. They look like they’re bored, apathetic, there because they have to be, sitting back and waiting for education to be done unto them. For certain, these descriptors don’t apply to all college students, but most of us would agree that they characterize far too many of the learners that sit in front of us.