Lately, I’ve been writing about motivation (here and here) because, it being the start of the school year, I am dying to know how to help my students (nearly all of whom start the year wanting to do well) persist in motivating themselves to do the year’s work and achieve a year’s worth (or more) […]
Helping Students Understand Motivation: The Character Strengths Angle
This past Tuesday, I ended “Truths about Student Motivation” with a question: what are the tools and strategies that can equip our students to muster up the motivation required to get them from where they are to where they aspire to be? This is constantly in my mind during these first weeks of school; I’ve […]
The First Article of the Week of the School Year: Key Teaching Points
This past Monday I found myself once again starting kids on the journey that is Kelly Gallagher’s article of the week assignment. I wish I had taken a video of myself teaching (primarily to illustrate that the start, at least in my classroom, is far from the stuff of movies). But since I didn’t, I thought […]
Truths about Student Motivation
It’s still early in the school year, but I can already sense some of the self-driven kids in my classes. I’ve learned about all of my kids a little bit through the first day of school index card activity (which is partially aimed at teaching purpose); and I’ve learned about a growing number of them through follow-up, one-on-one, […]
Paraphrase Plus: A Central Move of Engaging Classroom Discussions
This will be a short one — with the first (read: frenzied) week of school just behind me and Crystal off on a girls retreat, it’s Daddy Domination time, and the girls are bound to wake up in moments. Although my school year has only just begun, I know that some of you are using […]