Motivated Teaching: Harnessing the science of motivation to boost attention and effort in the classroom: 3 (High Impact Teaching)

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The mechanics of motivation: this section examines the centrality of attention [I've been writing an appropriately slow series on this: I'll get back to it]. But if you can connect it to life outside the classroom, it will give it new importance and motivate them to listen more attentively. Understanding how to motivate children and young people in education is crucial, if we are to provide them with the best possible start in life. The title of this book temptingly offers the silver bullet for teachers: a class full of bright-eyed learning enthusiasts hanging on their every word, eager to learn, work hard and succeed.

It’s super-motivating to hear that students can clearly connect course content to practical problem-solving in the community at local, regional, national or global levels. A few pages later there is a clear explanation of what for most people is a mysterious word ' heuristics', 'honed over millennia to enable us to make rapid decisions that lead to good enough results across a wide range of situations’. I managed to get myself admitted to a PhD in Australia with only a Canadian Honours degree, which is very different from an Australian Honours.This isn’t always necessary (Mccrea’s language is so clear and direct that I understood the key ideas without these regular summaries) but the simplicity is phenomenally powerful. Peps describes the 5 core drivers of motivation, and provides practical suggestions for how teachers can tap into these in their classrooms. In future posts, I’ll look to reflect on the second core driver, running routines, and how I can look to improve my use of routines in the classroom to enable more motivated students.

I have a routine of setting some starter questions at the beginning of lessons — but I want to make sure that most of these are easy enough for all to feel some success as they start the lesson. I’m wary of books that make big promises and then seem loaded with inspirational waffle, but this definitely isn’t that. Organize materials on an increasing level of difficulty; that is, structure the learning material to provide a “conquerable” challenge. Your role as a leader is to make your teachers’ lives easier so that they can teach and your students can learn. In the moment, I might be able to recognise that I’ve not succeed and model to students my response to it e.Increasing metacognitive talk in classrooms can help to develop student confidence, as it gives them a stronger awareness of the learning process. Help your teachers as much as possible when they have a heavier workload by asking what they need help with. By using the Web site, you confirm that you have read, understood, and agreed to be bound by the Terms and Conditions. In our current situation, schools have been concentrating on norms like mask-wearing and hand-washing, but we are finding it hard to have effective 'normative messaging' for so much else, due to restrictions on large gatherings and difficulties in communication].

Again, as teachers and school leaders we tend to put too much faith in formal statements and instructions. Be it racial inequality, climate change, pandemic management, or building trust in societies, we’re facing enormous challenges with no clear answers. Stabilising the environment – provide learning experiences that put pupils in control of their outcome. However, when you find your students need a nudge forwards, offering small incentives can help make learning fun. You can dip in over a half-hour in a queue, or while waiting for your own child to finish a swimming lesson - no great commitment of time, but a wallop of common sense and valuable insight that can have an impact on your lessons tomorrow.

Schools have a responsibility to be consistent in their approach, so students of all ages and abilities build trust in their environment. If they are learning in a caring, supportive and inclusive space, they will feel much more motivated to learn. He is now the Dean at the Ambition Institute – something that we speak about at the start of our conversation.

And for those who want to go full geek, the legendary Kathryn Morgan has pulled together all the links from Motivated Teaching into one handy all-the-links-you’ll-ever-need spreadsheet! In education, motivation helps children and young people to focus their attention on a key goal or outcome. These activities directly engage students in the material and give them opportunities to achieve a level of mastery.Although I set the same expectations and teach all students the same, Billy may interpret his performance in RE differently to Sarah.