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First Year Highlights: Student Motivation

By Larry Ferlazzo — June 18, 2012 2 min read
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I’m taking the summer off from answering new questions while I work on a sequel to my book, Helping Students Motivate Themselves.

Instead, over the next two months, I’ll be posting “collections” bringing links together from previous posts on common topics (classroom management, instructional strategies, etc.). I’ve published almost fifty separate “answers” over the past year, and thought that readers might find these summer compilations more accessible.

Today, I’ll be bringing together all my posts on the topic of student motivation.

Over the summer, of course, I’ll also be preparing future responses, so keep those questions coming!

You can send them to me at lferlazzo@epe.org.When you send it in, let me know if I can use your real name if it’s selected or if you’d prefer remaining anonymous and have a pseudonym in mind.

Anyone whose question is selected for this weekly column can choose one free book from a selection of twelve published by Eye On Education.

You can also contact me on Twitter at @Larryferlazzo.

Here are this year’s posts on student motivation -- I’m posting them in order of popularity (based on their number of “tweets":

1. Several Ways to Connect With Disengaged Students

Assistant Principal Jim Peterson and author Jim Anderson share their suggestions. Jim’s downloadable instructions for conducting “walk-and-talks” with students seemed to particularly strike a chord with readers.

2. Several Ways To Engage Students Without Carrots & Sticks

Principal Chris Wejr and educator and author Jeff Wilhelm offer practical ideas on how to help students develop intrinsic motivation.

3. Several Ways To ‘Motivate’ the Unmotivated To Learn

Best-selling authors Daniel Pink and Dan Ariely respond to the question -- with Ariely answering in a video.

4. Part Two Of Several Ways We Can Help Students Develop Good Habits

Author Art Markman lists several ways teachers can help students develop better study habits.

5. Several Ways To Help Students Develop Self-Control

Roy F. Baumeister, director of the social psychology program at Florida State University and co-author of Willpower: Rediscovering The Greatest Human Strength, describes his research on self-control as a “limited energy resource” and its classroom implications.

6. Several Ways We Can Help Students Develop Good Habits

New York Times reporter Charles Duhigg, author of the new best-selling book, The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business, shares his responses to my questions on how to apply his research to our work in schools.

I hope you’ve found this summary useful and, again, keep those questions coming!

The opinions expressed in Classroom Q&A With Larry Ferlazzo are strictly those of the author(s) and do not reflect the opinions or endorsement of Editorial Projects in Education, or any of its publications.