I just read a report written by an English language learner and sighed. I had difficulty following her ideas with misspelled words and grammatical errors. I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt; but though her ideas seemed interesting, the prose was very
Let’s say that we have created a culture for student engagement (See posts #2 and #3 in this series). How do we structure the programmatic aspects of our classrooms? The curriculum? Our instruction? Assessment? The good news is that lots of models have demonstrated enhanced
Contributed by Lois Brown Easton Imagine a classroom of students. What are students doing? During the all-class activity, a few are waving their hands to answer a question. A few students wave their hands to ask a question. Some are leaning forward. Others may be tapping
What did you think about as a result of reading my last blog post on motivation? In what ways have you created a culture of engagement in your classroom or school? In what ways are you providing for voice and choice in your school? To
I confess: I don’t believe in motivation. I don’t believe we can motivate kids to learn. Like you, I learned about intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in my teacher preparation courses. Intrinsic, I was told, is the best, because the student is internally motivated to learn.
Before my training sessions, I’ve made a habit of chatting up participants, asking them to name their primary student behavior concerns. Turns out, teachers rarely come to behavior management seminars because their students chew gum or call out without raising their hands. Sure, there’s always
Have you listened to a motivational speaker lately? I found myself watching a video of a well-known motivational speaker (who shall remain nameless!), and I was mesmerized. Afterwards, I realized that I already knew just about everything the speaker shared with her audience—nothing new—but the
Contributed by Pamela Nevills Picture a learning environment that demands student engagement. No student is allowed to be disconnected from lessons. Each one is in a constant state of readiness, for students know they are expected to think, respond, and learn. When students are engaged learning
One of our themes for March is Student Engagement. Here we've collected some of the best advice on increasing student engagement from Corwin authors and other experts! Study the data. The Quaglia Institute for Student Aspirations (QISA) has done extensive research in what motivates students through their
Science is not every everyone’s cup of tea. All too often, elementary teachers see science as challenging to teach and time consuming with few learning benefits for their students. I have worked to turn this scenario around by involving students and teachers in as many