In an ideal classroom discussion, everyone participates. In many real discussions, only a few students participate. The challenge is, how do you get from the real to the ideal? The ten activities in this post are designed to bridge that gap!
This post is on the secret sauce of student learning– motivation– and what the research says on how to increase students’ motivation. The bottom line on motivation is that students don’t, for the most part, roll out of bed and think “Gee whiz, I really want to learn fractions today!” And if students aren’t motivated, if they just don’t care about what you are teaching, they have all sorts of fun ways to check out or subvert it (Levin, 2000). I mean, they are almost as bad as teachers at a PD they wish they could have skipped… So how do you get there?
