The problem with our classes, from a motivational standpoint, is they’ve been surpassed by video games. Video games, as I laid out in my argument last week, are great at making players want to spend the time/effort/frustration costs of mastery; my world history class, less so. The solution, however, isn’t to “gamify” my class; rather, it’s to teach our students, […]
Two Ways to Live the Teacher’s Life (and Our Need for Both of Them)
I think there are two ways to live the teacher’s life and that we need a bit of both of them. The engaged teacher This teacher engages with the life of the school, its staff, and its students. She participates in spirit days or sponsors a club; he lives within walking distance of the school or […]
Your Students Want to Master What You’re Teaching Them
Students want to be good at things because it is fun being good at things. In other words, they are motivated by being good at, or mastering, things. Daniel Pink’s Drive, perhaps the most influential book on motivation of the past decade, is the most famous affirmation of this truth. Pink boils motivation down to three […]
Submit an Idea for Cultivating Character; Win a $10,000 Grant
In case you haven’t heard, Character Lab is now accepting proposals for a new year of the Teacher Innovation Grant (TIG). You can learn more about TIG here, or just read these bulleted highlights: What you need to provide prior to the 11/2/15 deadline: an idea for developing one or more character strengths in your classroom; […]
21 Ideas for Developing the Motivational Character Strengths
In “The Character Strengths and Motivation,” I laid out the 4.5 character strengths that I consider motivational in nature, and, at the end of the post, I laid out an example of the kind of “self-experimentation” we can use to learn how to teach our students to develop the “motivational strengths” in themselves (because marshaling one’s […]