Our school year will be over in four days and, after a brief rest, it will be time for me to complete the third volume in my student motivation “trilogy” that should be published early next year by Routledge.
It’s tentatively titled Building a Community of Self-Motivated Learners: Strategies for Teaching Resilience, Respect, and Responsibility (I’ve got to get that done by the end of the summer so that my colleague Katie Hull and I can get to work on the sequel to our ESL/ELL Teacher’s Survival Guide).
It looks like this next book will be timely, as student motivation and SEL is definitely in the news. Here are some related resources:
Student Motivation: Age-Old Problem Gets New Attention is a new report from Education Week, which is very good but would be better if they included links to the studies that are cited. It also includes a survey of Ed Week readers on motivation questions that, because the sample isn’t scientifically identified, is of somewhat limited use. I’m adding them to The Best Posts & Articles On “Motivating” Students.
How Can Teachers Foster Curiosity? is also from Ed Week. I’m adding it to The Best Posts On Curiosity.
I’m adding an older paper titled The Psychology of Curiosity to the same list.
Integrating Social-Emotional Learning Into High School is from Ed Week. I’m adding it to The Best Social Emotional Learning (SEL) Resources.
Teach The Teachers Well is from The New York Times. I’m adding it to the same list.
Here’s a disappointing graph I’m adding to The Best Posts & Articles On Student Engagement:
Sobering graphic – Change in enthusiasm by grade level. http://t.co/ZIQ3gQlDMv #eli2013 #edchat #teaching pic.twitter.com/gJdlZBNIQw
— Jim Cash (@cashjim) November 5, 2013
In my work in the classroom, motivating students comes about because we teach to their interests. I have moved away from traditional teaching more towards following their thoughts and ideas. I insert the curriculum in as they need it. Working with the students to share the responsibility of learning , in my mind, is the key to motivating them.
Study motivation is always such a popular topic among students. They want to find out how to be better motivated without the effort a lot of the time. We recently published an article with motivational comments to help students prepare for their exams: https://www.examtime.com/blog/study-motivation-tips/
Motivating students might turn into a bigger problem than what it is. There are many ways a student can get motivated, but they are specific to each individual and the amount of attention needed requires time. Students like to be in the comfort zone and with sites such as http://www.studybuddytoday.com they can study amongst each other from home. They have grown up with technology and that’s what they know the most.