The culture of blame is demotivating

We live in a culture of blame. Everything is someone else’s fault. This idea is reinforced by television, media, and what we see in the news. Frivolous lawsuits, high insurance rates; everything is someone else’s fault. One of the things that kids struggle with is taking ownership for their own behavior.

Why is this a problem? Because if I don’t believe that I am responsible for my own behavior, then I can’t change it. If I believe that you did something to me and that made me do something else: You made me mad; you made me do it – then I have given you the power and control.

Motivation means finding our personal power

If I don’t feel like I have any control, then I can’t be motivated. Why would I be motivated if I don’t have a choice? I can’t do anything because you have the control; it’s your fault. I’m powerless. We’re seeing this attitude become more and more prevalent in schools. Not every student displays this mindset, but it’s definitely an issue that I’ve seen and experienced as I work in classrooms across the country.

You can motivate your students by helping them to understand the power of owning their behavior. If motivation is about personal power, then when we blame, and give away our power, it affects our motivation level. But, when we own our behavior and say, “Okay, I own my reaction; I own what I do about it; I own how I take charge, then I own it.” We are motivated because we have the power to affect our circumstances.

Ownership and personal power equals Motivation

When I was younger, before I understood my own personal power, I would say, “You made me mad,” because, back then, that’s what I knew. But as I learned more about these concepts, luckily before my kids were born, I started changing the language in my house, then I changed it in my classroom: “No, I didn’t make you mad, I may have triggered your anger, I may have pushed your buttons, but you’re the one in control of you. I didn’t make you do anything.”

Ownership. Because if I own it, then I have control, I have personal power. If I have personal power I’m going to be more motivated.

For more on how to motivate students, take a look at How to Motivate Students and Increase Personal Power!

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1. Students do not believe they can succeed even if they try.
2. Students do not feel they have any control over their life choices.
3. Students have a need to avoid failure.

Change Negative Mindsets: Be a Mind Detective

I was teaching high school and working with struggling learners. Many of my students were unmotivated, felt defeated, or believed they were stupid. So, I tried some teaching strategies I learned from a book titled Freeing Your Child from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder by Tamar E. Chansky, Ph.D. It is, by far, the most practical, common-sense solutions book available written in lay person’s language on the topic of OCD. The author uses analogies, both verbal and visual, to help the reader understand how to approach the issue successfully.

For example, one analogy compares OCD thoughts to junk mail. Chansky suggests teaching youth to examine their thoughts. If their thoughts are negative, then they should label the thoughts as junk mail, or as something else the child could relate to. Having taught bullying prevention for several years at that point in time, I taught youth to label negative self-talk as “bullying thoughts.” I encouraged them to look at their thoughts by suggesting that they “Be a mind detective.”

I explained, “You’ve got thoughts going through your head. As a detective, determine: Are those thoughts negative? Are they positive? Are they telling you good things about yourself or bad things about yourself? What are they telling you? If they’re telling you bad things about yourself, tell them to stop it. You are the one in control of your thoughts. You’re the detective. When the detective tells you, ‘They’re saying these bad things,’ you tell those thoughts, ‘No! No more.’ Instead, choose thinking that is positive, that helps you to feel smart and powerful.”

Use positive self-talk.

Positive thinking is significantly related to youths’ engagement, self-confidence, imagination, and optimism in the learning process. (Hong, Lin, & Lawrenz, 2012) It is not very different from visualizing success. You are changing your thinking. You think it; you feel it; you do it. I have done a lot of research on this type of reprogramming our thoughts, gaining much from the works of Dr. Albert Ellis (Ellis, 2007).

Not everybody subscribes to that psychology, but I do because it works. There’s a significant body of research behind it as well as hundreds of years of spiritual teaching out of the Eastern philosophies. I realize that it is controversial in some religious circles and respect people’s right to differ. I, however, cannot remain silent on something that has yielded concrete, positive results and thus freed people from emotional pain.

The best way to combat these negative beliefs and behaviors is to use teaching strategies that engage learners and support their experience of success in the classroom. That said, these strategies will work with most of your students, yet may not work with all of them.

Teach Students to Learn How They Learn to Find the Road to Success

Students who feel they are not capable of more need to get their power back. Yes, maybe the teacher gave a hard test. Maybe they did not study, or did not study enough. Or, maybe they need to think about how they learn, and not always try to do things the way somebody else says they should do them. Maybe they do their homework, but maybe they also do a little extra the way they like to do it.

That is a hard sell for some children. My son used to say, “My teacher says write it out three times in cursive, so that’s what I have to do,” even though he did not learn that way.

Why should he write it out three times in cursive and fail the test every week? By the fifth week, do you think my son was motivated to write it out three times in cursive? Do you think homework was something he looked forward to? No, not spelling or vocabulary homework. Was it helping him? No!

So, I came up with a compromise.

“Okay, how about you write it two times in cursive, just as the teacher wants, and I’ll negotiate with your teacher to allow you to draw the word the third time.” So, the third time, we printed the word on a flashcard, added a picture that represented the word and color-coded the word. We practiced five cards a day for the week before the test, just five of them at a time.

Every single time he made flashcards, color-coded with a visual image, and practiced a little bit every day, he aced the test. Finally, I stopped getting involved because he was doing it on his own.

And then one week I saw an ‘F’ on his test. I asked, “Honey, what happened?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did you do your flashcards?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Well, I was doing so good. I thought it was easy, I did not think I needed to do it anymore.”

Every single time he chose not to use the strategy, he failed the test. Eventually, he figured out that he needed to honor the way he learned.

My son was one of those children who did not want any strategies that were different from what the teachers required and the other children were doing. In college, he still did not want to stand out as a different learner; however, he knew that to succeed, he would have to sort out a way to use his strategies discreetly. He knew how he learned, and he used it sometimes, but he would not tell anyone he was using a different strategy. That was fine. “I don’t learn from the teacher,” he said. “I go to class and I sit there to look good. I’m just in the chair so they count me when they take attendance, then, after class I get together with other kids in my class, or with the teacher’s assistant.”

In high school honors classes, he did not learn anything from his teachers. He will tell you that straight out, because they all lectured, except for his chemistry class. That lady let them blow things up – he loved that chemistry teacher! So, how did he succeed in honors and Advanced Placement classes? He went to a local coffee shop with his friends, or to somebody’s house, and they taught each other.

My son learns best by peer tutoring, watching tutorial videos, and hands-on experiences. My daughter uses a variety of visual study strategies and loves to teach her friends as well. She would broadcast what she was doing to succeed; but my son is private. They are different children.

Tell students, “Choose how you learn. Learn how you learn, and choose to learn how you learn!” So many children know how they learn and won’t do it because they don’t want to look different.

Teaching Strategies that Foster Empowerment and Motivation

In a study by J. Nichols titled Empowerment and Relationships: A classroom model to enhance student motivation, the initial findings indicate that a classroom environment which is based on positive social relationships, while encouraging student empowerment, may be the first step toward improving student motivation and achievement. She describes a classroom environment that not only attends to the social and emotional needs of students, but also to learner-centered teaching as a critical factor (Nichols, 2006).

Learner-centered instruction is differentiated instruction. It is instruction that honors how students learn, utilizes teaching models that increase student engagement and thereby increases motivation and success.

Following are some simple, effective, easy-to-implement teaching strategies for engaging learners and differentiating instruction. Again, if you choose to teach using these strategies, teach students that the strategies that work for them are their strategies to use the rest of their lives. This is the essence of personalized learning.

Strategies That Support Success:

1. Chunking – Chunk tasks for students so that they approach their learning challenges a piece at a time. Students who struggle in the classroom are best served by breaking assignments into manageable parts, with manageable deadlines, that focus on success. Chunking does not require teachers to reduce rigor. Imagine that you must clean a very messy, seven-room house. If you were to chunk the task of cleaning the house, you might tackle one room at a time, or first declutter, one room at a time, and then dust on another day. On the third day, you might wash and polish floors, then wash and clean the rugs. Eventually, if these tasks are spread out over a period of time, the house will be impeccably clean. Essentially, this is the same approach as chunking assignments in the classroom. Each chunk, completed well, is a success to be celebrated.
2. Offer choices in academic assignments – Can our students and schools make the grade but still offer students some choices? No matter how strict your school-district mandates are, we must ask: Are there choices we can offer? Because choices empower, motivate, and foster critical thinking (Brooks & Young, 2011; Flowerday & Schraw, 2000; Simmons & Page, 2010). Offer students choices as often as possible to allow them to exercise control in their lives. Too often, students feel they have no control over their success or their emotions. They blame others for their failure, or attribute their success to good luck rather than their hard work and ability, or they blame themselves, using the excuse that they are stupid. When students have choices, they must exercise control to make decisions. Once they make a decision, it is critical that they accept the consequences of those decisions. They own it, for good or for bad.
3. Ask students what went right – Focus on what the student has learned from an exercise or an assignment as opposed to what went wrong. Most importantly, encourage students to think beyond the grade and to understand that mistakes are an opportunity for learning. Recently, I observed a teacher handing back assignments and highlighting how many points the student had improved from the previous assignment. Students cheered for each other, acknowledging everyone who made gains. If there were students who did not make gains, that was handled discreetly because I never heard a negative number called out. It was exciting to see students and teachers celebrating even small successes. I used to think positive thinking was “fluff.” I am not a touchy-feely kind of person, so I pooh-poohed it. But the research shows that, biologically, positive thinking literally builds neural connections in your brain. You are actually firing off neurons and dendrites that are releasing dopamine (Shohamy & Adcock, 2010), noradrenaline and other brain chemicals which, in fact, support successful learning. Negative self-talk releases too much cortisol, which is a stress hormone, and increased levels of cortisol impair working memory (Oei, Everaerd, Elzinga, Van Well, & Bermond, 2006). This is not psychological. It is biological.
4. Create opportunities for students to exhibit their strengths – When assigning students to groups in a high school biology class, the teachers asked for five volunteers who could draw well. Three students quickly stood up. The teachers announced again that they needed five and asked for the rest of the class to share who they felt was good at art. Students quickly named two additional students. Each of those students was then assigned to a separate group. Now, each group had an artist to work with on the project. The teachers then went on to ask for excellent internet researchers. Five students quickly stood up. Those five students were assigned to five separate groups. Now each group had an artist and a researcher. Student individual strengths were celebrated so even students who may not have been outstanding biologists had an opportunity to focus on their success and how it contributed to the team.
5. Students need personal goals – Ask students about their goals and frequently show the connection between what they are learning in the classroom to their personal goals. Be ready to answer the question, “Why do I need this?” rather than share careers that may be meaningless to specific students, try to find examples from a wide spectrum of interests and career paths so that students might see the possibilities and the light that is meaningful to them. (Hallenbeck & Fleming, 2011)
6. Energize your class – Infuse your classroom with short musical energy breaks once or twice during a class period. Set a timer for 90 seconds, and crank up some Vivaldi, Mozart, or other Baroque period pieces that play at about 60 beats per minute. Then, have students stand, stretch, move, clap, stomp, or dance to the music. If you want to take that up a level, create an “I can do it!” chant to the beat of the music. (Brewer, 1995)
7. Teach students how to learn – Allow students opportunities to study the way that they learn instead of the way you learn or way the teacher’s manual dictates. Some students learn by writing what they hear. Some students learn by drawing pictures and labeling what they hear. Some write best from a traditional outline. Some write best if they start with a graphic organizer. Some work best standing or sitting on a Pilates ball. Some prefer the traditional desk and chair. Some memorize better by singing their notes. Some need to repeat what they have learned over and over again in a chant. Avoid forcing all students to learn the same way at the same time and at the same pace. There’s no faster way to demotivate students than to fail to recognize their individuality.

Walk Your Talk: Do not Feel Like a Failure If You Cannot Reach One Child

It is important to understand that, as teachers, we should not give up on using engaging strategies because there might be a few students on our roster who, no matter what we do to reach them, we cannot reach. Just as we need to help students focus on their success, we as educators, also need to focus on our successes and not give up because our efforts are not 100% successful. As a teacher mentor, I see, all too often, that teachers will give up because they focused on the one or two students in the classroom that they cannot reach. Do not fall into that trap.

References:

Brewer, C. B. (1995). Music and learning: Integrating music in the classroom. Retrieved April 1, 2013, from http://education.jhu.edu/PD/newhorizons/strategies/topics/Arts in Education/brewer.htm

Brooks, C. F., & Young, S. L. (2011). Are Choice-Making Opportunities Needed in the Classroom ? Using Self- Determination Theory to Consider Student Motivation and Learner Empowerment. International Journal of Teaching & Learning in Higher Education, 23(1), 48–59.

Ellis, A. (2007). Overcoming Resistance: A Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy Integrated Approach (2nd ed.). New York, N.Y.: Springer Publishing Company.

Flowerday, T., & Schraw, G. (2000). Teacher beliefs about instructional choice: A phenomenological study. Journal of Educational Psychology, 92(4), 634–645. http://doi.org/10.1037//0022-0663.92.4.634

Hallenbeck, A., & Fleming, D. (2011). Don’t you want to do better?: Implementing a goal-setting intervention in an afterschool program. Afterschool Matters, 38–48.

Hong, Z. R., Lin, H.-S., & Lawrenz, F. P. (2012). Effects of an Integrated Science and Societal Implication Intervention on Promoting Adolescents’ Positive Thinking and Emotional Perceptions in Learning Science. International Journal of Science Education. http://doi.org/10.1080/09500693.2011.623727

Nichols, J. D. (2006). Empowerment and relationships: A classroom model to enhance student motivation. Learning Environments Research, 9(2), 149–161. http://doi.org/10.1007/s10984-006-9006-8

Oei, N. Y. L., Everaerd, W. T. A. M., Elzinga, B. M., Van Well, S., & Bermond, B. (2006). Psychosocial stress impairs working memory at high loads: An association with cortisol levels and memory retrieval. Stress (Amsterdam, Netherlands), 9(3), 133–141. http://doi.org/10.1080/10253890600965773

Shohamy, D., & Adcock, R. A. (2010). Dopamine and adaptive memory. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 14(10), 464–472. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2010.08.002

Simmons, A. M., & Page, M. (2010). Motivating Students through Power and Choice. English Journal, 100(1), 65–69.

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Mimicking vs. Being Forced to Think

I have about a dozen children in my Martial Arts class. When teaching them their martial arts forms, we do a continuous series of moves. I stand in front of them and do the forms while they follow along behind me. When they stand behind me they do just beautifully!

Originally, I thought, “These kids are good!” When I first started teaching Kung Fu, I couldn’t understand how we could do the same moves for weeks with students following along perfectly, then on a review day, I’d say, “Okay, Johnny, step up to the front and show me ‘8 Chain Punch.'” and, he couldn’t do it.

At some point, I realized that my students had simply been copying me! Children are excellent mimics. While we were in class, they had been watching me and copying the moves. Then they went home and couldn’t remember the moves to practice on their own.

In looking for a solution, I reflected on how my martial arts instructors taught me. As a new martial arts student, I was frustrated at the expectation that I could be shown a move and two minutes later be expected to practice it on my own. I know what happens in my brain – I forget and have to dig deep to recall what I was shown.

The reality is that in order to internalize new material, you have to make yourself think about what you are supposed to do. You might get it wrong, but at least you’re getting your brain and those neural connections working, and that gets it into your memory, a little bit at a time.

If we help youth through the whole process, they won’t know how to do it on their own afterward. It’s really hard as a parent or teacher, especially when working with a student who struggles, to walk away and let them sort the learning out. But we must let them practice so that they learn and remember.

So, how do we help our youth without doing too much for them?

For example: You’ve got a student who’s taking a test and is stuck on a question.

Tell Them What They’ve Done Correctly

Find something right about what they’ve done. They don’t need to hear what they did wrong. Instead, tell them what they did correctly so that they feel a measure of personal power and capability.

This strategy is an excellent communication strategy when dealing with anybody, whether in the workplace, in your family, or at school.

My personality style is: one who critiques first and my business manager is: one who appreciates first, so if I critique first, he often perceives my critique as hurtful. I’ve had 14 years of working with him to learn how to appreciate first.

I’ve had to learn this same approach when communicating with my son. He’s the only ‘feeling’ type personality in my house and is quite sensitive. Certain personalities really need you to appreciate first, to find out what’s right first, and not to go right to the critique. It may seem like it’s more efficient to go directly to the point, however, it can be the worst thing you can do and a strong de-motivator.

If it’s your personality style to critique first, train yourself to appreciate first. Practice the skill, it will pay off immensely.

Teach the Next Step and Leave!

After you’ve told them what they’ve done right, then tell them the next step. Don’t get into long explanations; just tell them the next step: The next step is this. It may be counter-intuitive. It may seem illogical to not tell them why. But a contributor to learned helplessness is that learning becomes overwhelming (Mikulincer, 1995).

If they’re getting it wrong and they’re frustrated, and we try to take the time to go through this long explanation about why it’s wrong, what to do next and how to do it, that youth is on sensory overload.

The conversation might sound like this: “Yes, you got that right. You got the notes down just beautifully, there. Here’s what you do next. Okay. You’re on your own.”

Walk Away – Leave and Don’t Look Back!

This is the hardest thing to do!

Now, they might say, “But… but can you…?”

No! They may try to guilt you into not leaving them, but no; you go! You walk away. Resist the urge to take care of them! Resist the urge to do it for them! Resist the urge to give in! Resist.

Personally, I can relate to this. I realize I learn the same way. If I’m stuck, don’t give me a detailed explanation. Just tell me what to do to get to the next step. In that moment of ‘stuckness’, that’s what I need. Teach me the explanation later when there’s more time, I’m less frustrated and I’m calm. Or, let me learn on my own in my own time. If you try to give me a long, detailed explanation I’ll quickly reach overload. I’m a visual learner, so telling me isn’t going to help anyway. Draw me a picture.

Excerpted from Motivating Students To Choose Success, Proven Strategies To Lend A Helping Hand. Get your copy today and learn how to motivate students to be successful!

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Why students struggle

Our students struggle for many reasons, but often there’s a bigger cause behind their struggles: schooling that doesn’t match their goals and interests.

I’ve worked with many students who struggled in school. Their problem is one that compounds itself: One failure leads to another failure, and another and another, and each time the student gets more discouraged until their motivation drops to almost nothing. Behind their struggles is one big problem: These children don’t know how to learn. They don’t know how to learn because no one really took the time to find out how they learn. Many students learn and retain information differently than how a lesson is taught.

If a student can be made aware that they learn differently – if they learned how they learned – their motivation and willingness to learn would increase. They’d accomplish more than they ever believed they could.

Connecting the dots to learning for struggling students

To do that, a teacher has to experiment with different strategies to find out how a struggling student learns. It’s not always easy to do given the limitations of class time and the size of the classes many of us lead, but there are ways to work with students within these limits that can make a world of difference for them.

The norm in American schools today is to deliver information to the students in one way. There’s a lecture, maybe a practice exercise or a quiz. If there’s time, a few minutes of independent study or time to start homework might be assigned. How many of your students don’t connect with the lesson?

Creating lessons that engage students is a daily challenge. Students have the information; how do they process it? What can they do with it? How do they connect the dots between receiving the information and actually learning it?

It’s my firm belief that knowing that you’re capable of learning is more important than finding what motivates you. Once you believe you’re capable of learning, you will be motivated to learn. If you don’t believe in your capabilities, if you don’t believe that you’re in control of your destiny, then why would you ever be motivated to learn, grow and succeed? How can someone set goals when they don’t believe they’ll reach them?
The reality is that most of the students you are trying to motivate don’t believe they are capable of learning. Many don’t believe an education will change their destiny.

Assess, then guide

What I did with students was to assess what kind of learners they were. Any chance I got – from talking with them, from reading their papers, from observing how they interacted with other students in the class, and from how they behaved during lectures – I mentally took notes on who they were, what they showed interest in, and what seemed to totally bore them.

Whenever I could, I guided students toward activities or assignments that played to their strengths. It wasn’t always possible, but I kept an eye out for opportunities.

Stop trying to motivate students until you understand what learning strategies work for them. Then tell them what works!

Struggling student case study

One of my students had to complete just one more assignment to pass his English class and get his high school diploma. He needed to write a term paper. And he was refusing to do it. “It’s stupid,” he told me when I sat down with him after class. “The topic is stupid.”

“What’s your favorite thing to do?” I asked him.

He shrugged. “I like snowmobiles. I go riding every weekend when there’s enough snow on the ground.” He wanted to compete in snowmobiling, he told me, and didn’t see the point in having a high school diploma for that.

There was my AHA! moment – the opportunity I had been looking for.

“What if you wrote a paper on snowmobiling?” I said. You see, the topics the school offered were suggestions – the goal was to write a term paper. That bit of leeway was a big opportunity to guide a student. “You could write about the history of the sport. You’ve got a ton of knowledge about snowmobiles,” I said.

This kid brightened up. He knew everything there was to know about snowmobiles. And he went to town on that paper. I was stunned by what he came up with and the research he put into it. He went to the library and worked with the school librarian to find the sources he needed. Research was something I never expected to see him doing – but because the topic was in his interest area, he was motivated. Even more, he had the support – from me and the librarian – that he needed in order to believe he could be successful.

Look for the little ways to help struggling students

As teachers, we often don’t have many options available for the students to choose from. The decision about what to teach and how to teach it is made for us. But if we can find ways to weave students’ personal interests into our lessons – if we can find the small loopholes that allow us to empower struggling students to decide how they’ll learn – we may be able to reach children that we couldn’t otherwise reach.

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In a performance-driven school culture, how do you keep kids motivated?

I’ve always believed that there’s more than one way to motivate students. The key is to make them feel that they have control over their destiny. If that sounds like a reach, think about what we as adults work for.  We don’t just work to pay the bills: some of us work to gain autonomy over our lives, some of us work for the challenge, and some to achieve a higher goal.

Children may not be able to articulate why they’re motivated to do assignments just yet, but they have similar goals. To most of them, a good grade is a reward. But a good grade is only one piece of the puzzle of how to motivate students.

Most schools are part of this country’s test-driven educational culture and are set up so that students earn grades for performance. Consequently, the grade is the reward. But think about the student who isn’t motivated by the promise of a good grade – who believes he is stupid and destined for poverty or failure. That student doesn’t care about grades at all. How can teachers motivate him to do assigned work and boost his grades? How do we make him care?

A game-changing idea

What if you could ignite a student’s motivation, and build their confidence, by associating them with an identity and its specific behaviors and motivators? For teachers in crowded, time-crunched classrooms, this could be a game-changer.

Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton, authors of What Motivates Me: Put Your Passions to Work, detailed five different identities of people that are motivated in different ways. These identities were given the titles of Builders, Caregivers, Reward-Driven, Thinkers, and Achievers. Now, Gostick and Elton surveyed adults, and their identities were built from this study of 850,000 adults and what motivated them. Much, if not all, of their findings applies to children, also.

Builders, for example, like having a purpose, and like it when their work matters. They tend to work well in groups, too. Likewise, caregivers, may like working in groups for a different reason: They are very social and are motivated to make things better for others. Achievers may pick the toughest goals, with an eye on accomplishment; they see the achievement as their reward. Thinkers like to solve problems on their own.

Teachers who are challenged to motivate their students in new ways may find effective solutions in studying these traits and applying these identities to students – without telling them directly. For example, give a thinker a choice of assignments so they feel more in control of their environment. A builder may get a huge boost of confidence by being asked to help a fellow student with an assignment during class. Place a caregiver in charge of distributing materials for a lesson and see how positively they react to this new responsibility.

A builder at heart

I had a student in class who would never get his homework done. He was up out of his chair constantly. You know these kids: They’re really smart, but they’re not turning their work in. One day I had the class doing independent work, and I was going from student to student to help them out. One student, Danny, needed extra help, Jimmy was already bouncing around the room, and there was only one of me. I said, “Jimmy, I know you know how to do this. Would you mind helping Danny? Would you show him how to do it?”

What happened next was incredible. It was one of those things as a teacher where you go, “Wow!” Jimmy immediately sat down with Danny, and he performed like the best teacher in the world. The two of them sat there, completely focused, for the rest of the period. He helped Danny get all the work done – the whole assignment, even though he didn’t do his own.

It left me with a bit of a dilemma in grading Jimmy. Should I give them the same grade? Both their names were on the paper; they both did the assignment. Ultimately I gave Jimmy the same grade because I felt it would be a real motivator for him, although other teachers might answer that question differently.

That AHA! Teaching moment happened before I’d read What Motivates Me, but after reading the book I realized that Jimmy was either a builder or a caregiver. And on that day, I’d hit on exactly what motivated him to do the work.

Trying new motivational tools

Gostick and Elton’s book includes a motivator assessment, which is also available online – so teachers can try it out for themselves and look over the detailed descriptions about each personality type. It could help foster some ideas on motivating students with different personalities. (I’m including a non-affiliate discount code for the assessment at the end of this article.)

In a time-starved classroom, trying out new motivational tools may be difficult. Teachers might work in alternative creative assignments and responsibilities as best they can. Possibly, motivate and engage students by providing optional assignments or responsibilities as extra credit.

Remember that no child fits exactly into one motivator identity, and each will respond differently to assignments. They may not blossom when peer tutoring, for example, but might show real confidence and motivation when participating in a group assignment.

If you have students that you know are smart, but aren’t working for the grade, can they be motivated another way that doesn’t revolve around testing and grades? Is there some other way to reach them? It’s worth a try. And now, finally, there’s a tool to help you get a better handle on what motivates your students. 

For a $5.00 discount, use the coupon code: Fitzell5

Sources:

Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton, What Motivates Me: Put Your Passions to Work (The Culture Works, Sept. 2014)

Susan Fitzell, Motivating Students to Achieve Success (Cogent Catalyst Publications, March 2014)

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Teaching Strategies: Goal Setting

Add Goal Setting for Motivating Students to Your Kit of Teaching Strategies

Goal setting is a planning process for empowering and motivating students to take control of their progress and work toward something in which they are invested. Students need to choose their own goals. We might guide them in the process; however, if they are to be motivated to work toward their goals, they have to feel ownership.

Long-term goals are good for the big picture; however, they seldom seem to keep students motivated on a day-to-day basis. Short-term goals that work toward the long-term goal seem to keep students on task and allow them to see the milestones as they are accomplished.

Encourage students to commit to realistic and reachable short-term goals. If students are unrealistic, they will fail to reach their goal and thus defeat the process of goal setting. It is important for students to meet their goals to feel successful and not repeat a cycle of failure.

Build a form, like the one shown here, to easily implement these powerful teaching strategies and help your students define, plan, and reach their goals.

Excerpted from Special Needs in the General Classroom, 500+ Teaching Strategies for Differentiating Instruction

We have even more tips and strategies for motivating students. Check them out here!

CLICK HERE to discover a wealth of teaching strategies and resources for maximizing student success!.

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Although a few students might be stressed by the use of a timer, the majority of students seem to enjoy the challenge, especially when a stopwatch timer is being used. If we think about it, it is really not that odd that today’s generation would enjoy the race. Most of our students have grown up playing video games, many of which incorporate a “beat the clock” function. So this game is a game they have been playing all their lives.

Timers for Every Platform

Timer+ Touch HD
This is my favorite iPad timer app. It’s so easy to use. Touch the app and move your fingers in a clockwise direction to set the time. The timer is shown in different colors for:

• Minutes in RED
• Hours in BLUE
• Seconds in GREEN

PC Chrono
PC Chrono is a very good, basic, free program for Windows users with a timer, alarm, stopwatch, and countdown timer. It’s timer is capable of resuming your PC from sleep mode and, according to the website, voice synthesis is used to remind you about timer/stopwatch progress or hourly chime. Mp3, ogg or wav sounds can be played to notify you that the time is up.

Online-Stopwatch.com
A Simple, fast, flash-based online stopwatch and countdown timer with more than 15 different timer functions and a variety of different timer options. You will need to be online to use this browser app and your computer must be flash-enabled in order for you to use it.

Hybrid Stopwatch and Timer
The Google Play store says that Hybrid Stopwatch and Timer is “a simple, easy and accurate app for Android that will help you to measure the time of any situation, like sports, cooking, games, education, etc.”
 
The use, and value, of timers is something that I talk about in every program I present. They are that important, useful, and powerful. Try these great tools, find the one that works best for you, and see for yourself how using timers in your classrooms can motivate your students!

Excerpted from 100+ Tech Ideas for Teaching English and Language Arts

For more information about using technology to strengthen instruction, see Susan Fitzell’s book, Using iPads and Other Cutting Edge Technology to Strengthen Your Instruction.

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“I’m bored mom!” When I was little, I never wanted to say the word bored because mom would figure out something for me to do and it didn’t involve the toy box or the board games in the family room. I said it anyway and for a while, in elementary school, I was bored at school. Turns out, I needed to be challenged in a different way. Pictures and mind-maps turned out to be my saving grace.

Kiddos sometimes say they are bored at school. But let’s face it; school is not going to always be engaging. Like life, there are things in schools that they simply have to do. Period.

But how do we tell if they are REALLY bored? The kind of bored that makes them turn away from education. The kind of bored that makes them not care about their grades. The kind of bored that tells you, as the parent, that school is just not fun anymore.

Watch how they approach homework. One of the single best ways to recognize if your child is bored at school is by how they approach their homework. This is not to say we expect them to come bouncing in the door after school, forgoing a snack and play time, joyfully opening up their backpack and their homework folder.  If that’s your kid, that’s pretty darn amazing and I have one question for you… can I borrow him or her for a few days? Whatever it is that they have, I need it to rub off on some kiddos I know.
 
We can tell a lot from their homework engagement level and there are simple ways we can teach our children to love to learn. Here are three signs your tell that your child might be bored at school by watching how they approach their homework:

• They rush through it
• They show visible and often times vocal frustration
• They don’t seem to care

Now go watch them play: If that’s your child, go watch them play. Seriously. By watching them play, we can visibly recognize their unique learning style and structure homework, and learning, in a way that they will begin to love to learn. Most children (adults as well) fall into one of four learning styles or a combination of two. One way I use to demonstrate this is by a quick example of four children playing in a sandbox.

Sally is in the middle of the sandbox, up to her elbows in sand. She is our Implementor or ‘demonstrator’ child. Sally has to be hands-on. She is the child deconstructing the new toaster you just bought. She needs to learn in a three-dimensional way. If doing math homework, use marshmallows and pretzel sticks to make shapes and geometry come alive. Homework and schoolwork needs to be more than numbers or words on a page for her.

Johnny is holding court, gesturing to all his friends. He has a big idea for the best sand castle ever made and he can’t wait to tell everyone all about it. Johnny is our Quick Start or ‘idea’ child. This child is a visionary and likes to do things his own way. To help this child love to learn, let them put their spin on learning assignments. For example, let them dress up or act out a book report. Homework and schoolwork needs to allow him to be creative and expressive.

Looking closely at Megan, we notice that she has the sand castle building tools organized around her as she sits in the sandbox. Left to right, everything is organized in a pattern. Megan is a Follow Through or ‘process’ child. This is a child who needs to know the plan. She solves problems by organizing and being systematic. For Megan, let her make an agenda of homework to be completed and check it off as it is completed. Homework and schoolwork needs allow her to know the steps and the expectations before beginning the assignment.
 
Billy is sitting on the edge of the sandbox asking a million questions. He is our Fact Finder or ‘why’ child. This thinking child solves problems by gathering information. He doesn’t like to begin a learning assignment until he has all the information he needs. For this child, turn learning into a fact-finding mission. Instead of giving him the answer, ask what the question is to the answer. Homework and schoolwork needs to allow him to explore the answers and provide him with the details he craves.
 
Schoolwork, just like homework, can be structured to meet a child’s unique learning style. The good news is, it does not take a lot of adjustment. Meet with your child’s teacher and have a discussion about what you have observed through their play and homework. Together, small changes can be made in the classroom to make learning more engaging for your child.

If you have a child that is struggling with homework, send me an email at zebecs.com.

Lisa Baker-King
Author, Consultant & Business Expert
Connecting Families – Celebrating Children – Changing Companies
 
Lisa Baker-King is a nationally recognized and televised author, consultant and coach who is creating a movement to break the rules and celebrate what is RIGHT about us. She is passionate about helping families; organizations and small business owners find and pursue their passions with purpose. With over 20 years coaching small business owners, families, educators and children; Lisa is a certified coach, specializing in KolbeTM. Kolbe is the science of human actions, reactions and interactions. It’s the instincts that drive individual and group behaviors, personally and professionally.

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