Motivating Disengaged Students Useful Methods and Ideas for EducatorsJack Baldermann

708-243-0597

jackbaldermann@gmail.com

THE COMMUNITY ENTRUSTS TO THE COMMUNITY ENTRUSTS TO US WHAT IS MOST SACRED IN US WHAT IS MOST SACRED IN

THEIR LIVES.THEIR LIVES.

Riverside Brookfield High School:Results - Accomplishments One of the Most Improved High Schools in Illinois/Nation

Top 150 – America’s Best High Schools – Newsweek (2006, 2007,2008, 2009) 300% increase in A.P. Scholars

98%+ Graduation Rate Average(2004- 2008)

100% Graduation Rate for Hispanic & African American students (represent 21% of population) (2006)

Over 10% increase in PSAE scores (2001-2009)

_ Made AYP 2009 74.5% meets or exceeds for Hispanic students on Reading PSAE

Philosophy

Compassion and Respect

Continuous Improvement “Good is the Enemy of Great.” –Jim Collins

Leadership – many leaders should emerge “True leadership only exists if people follow when

they have the freedom not to.” –Jim Collins

Philosophy

“I look for people who are psyched and ready to do

whatever it takes. Attitude is about being on fire—you’ve got

to approach work like it’s a religious experience.”

Charlie Trotter, Lessons in Excellence

Our Learning Target

1. We will develop a better understanding of why students are not motivated. Get into the mind of the unmotivated

student

What does the research tell us?

Our Learning Target

2. We will identify practices that

have been proven to reach

unmotivated students.

Our Learning Target

3. Each participant will identify

at least 3 practices that

he/she will start or stop

doing.

“Instruction begins when you, the teacher, learn from the learner; put yourself in his place so that you may understand…what he learns and the way he understands it.”

-Soren Kierkegaard, The Journals, 1854.

When you see an unmotivated student, what do you see?

Describe this person

Give specific characteristics

How do you feel about this student?

What is your reaction?

Name one thing that you hate doing.

--------------------------------------(please answer here)

Name one thing that you are

terrible at.--------------------------------------

(please answer here)

How would you rate your intelligence?

Why are students not motivated?

They are protecting their self-worth.

Lack of Motivation:Qualities of Unmotivated

Students Protecting Self-Worth

Use of self-defeating strategies

Withholding effort, cheating, procrastination, giving up, acting out, etc.

Behavior is a result of a fear of failure Better to attribute failure to lack of effort than to lack of ability

James Raffini, Winners Without Losers: Structures and Strategies for Increasing Student Motivation to Learn

Why are students not motivated?

They feel their effort will make no difference.

Why are students not motivated?

They do not find meaning or relevance in their work.

Lack of Motivation:Qualities of Unmotivated

Students Why will I ever need to know this?

Without perceived value or purpose, students are less interested in offering their best effort.

Cannot find connections between schoolwork and the real world.

REVIEW

Understanding Why

Protecting self-worth

Effort will make no difference (given up hope)

Do not see relevance

How do we How do we sometimes sometimes respond?respond?

Review: Common mistakes

The authoritarian attitude

Failure to establish positive relationships

Lack of relevance

Low/Unclear expectations

What do you do to motivate your students?

What successful strategies can you list?

What works at Wasson

Food Modify and adjust as building relaitonship with accountability. 2x10 strategy Modify skills requirements to meet their interests and relevancy. Find a role in the classroom that is significant Set them up for success, confidence Build relationship Catch them doing something good and send it home. Teach to seek and find relevance for themselves. Learn the accomplishments and difficulties students have faced. Show you take the time to learn about them from their other

relationships. Be resilient; don’t let the student wear you out

Motivation: Strategies for Success

Build Strong Build Strong RelationshipsRelationships

The Best Teachers… Have a deep respect for their

students and they believe that every student can learn.

Know their subjects well and understand human learning.

Prepare to teach with rigor and dedication. Have high expectations of each student. Create a learning environment where students

are encouraged to think critically. Self-evaluate and make necessary changes.

Ken Bain, What the Best College Teachers Do

Motivation: Strategies for Success

Build Strong RelationshipsOffer constructive feedback

that leads to a growth mindset

Believe and careSmall victoriesFocus and build on strengths

Ahead of the Curve (DuFour, Reeves, Stiggins, Guskey, Wiliam, Marzano et all)Formative Assessment

and

Black and Wiliam – “Inside the Black Box”

“no other way of raising standards for which such a strong prima facie case can be made”

(pg. 139)

Inside the Black Box - Black & Wiliam Feedback to any pupil should be about the

particular qualities of his or her work, with advice on what he or she can do to improve, and should avoid comparisons with other pupils.

For formative assessments to be productive, pupils should be trained in self-assessment so that they can understand the main purpose of their learning and thereby grasp what they need to do to achieve.

Formative AssessmentCompetence Leads to Confidence Identify strengths and learning gaps Provide additional time and practice Implement Corrective Instruction

targeted at learning needs Second chance to demonstrate learning

Dr. Carol Dweck – Mindset (2006)Over 20 years of research on student motivation Intelligence is not fixed “A few modern philosophers…assert that an

individual’s intelligence is a fixed quantity, a quantity which cannot be increased. We must protest and react against this brutal pessimism…With practice, training, and above all method, we manage to increase our attention, our memory, our judgment and literally to become more intelligent than we were before.” (Alfred Binet-Modern Ideas About Children)

Growth Mindset vs. Fixed Mindset C. Dweck & N. Holmes-Mindset p. 245 Fixed Mindset

Intelligence is static Leads to a desire to look smart and a tendency to Avoid challenges Get defensive or give up easily See effort as fruitless or worse Ignore useful constructive criticism Feel threatened by the success of others Avoid negative judgments Leads to achieving less than their full potential

Growth Mindset Intelligence can be developed therefore leads to a

desire to learn and therefore a tendency to Embrace challenges Persist in the face of setbacks See effort as the path to mastery Learn from criticism Find lessons and inspiration in the success of others As a result they reach ever higher levels of achievement

Provide a secure environment that permits children to fail without penalty.

Teach that struggle is natural in the learning process.

“The passion for stretching yourself and sticking to it even (or especially) when it is not going well, is the hallmark of the growth mindset.” (Dweck p.7)

Strategic Comprehension: A Model for Content Area Literacy Across the CurriculumTraditional Format Reading Assignment Given (or activity) Independent Reading/Doing Discussion to see if students learned the main conceptsPhase I Frontloading Key:

Vocabulary, Big Ideas, Clarify Purpose, Mental Anchors, Questions, etc.

Phase II Teacher Mediated

Teach strategies directly Read more than once

Chunk textStructured discussionGraphic Organizers

Phase III Activities to reinforce & extend reading

(Kevin Feldman)

Alternative to Tradition Questioning in a Classroom Setting

Question to the Whole Class followed by random (usually the most motivated)

hand raising.

- Place students in pairs and call on all students

Difficult Conversations

15 years of research at the Harvard Negotiation Project tells us…

Douglas Stone, et al., Difficult Conversations, 1999

Difficult Conversations

Seek first to understand

Learn their story

Problem-solve together

Difficult Conversations

Think like a mediatorConsider the Third Story

You must first understand before you can motivate students

Difficult Conversations

Make it a learning conversation

Adopt the curiosity stance

Motivation: Strategies for Success

Make Relevant Lessons “Whatever the expected learning

outcomes, there must be a direct

connection with the ‘real world’

outside the classroom. Application of

acquired learning is most significant

in life-like situations.”

Daniel J. Burke, “Connecting Content Motivation: Education’s Missing Link”

“Whereas many schools operate as if their

primary purpose is to ensure that children

are taught, PLCs are dedicated to the idea

that their organization exists to ensure that

all students learn essential knowledge,

skills, and dispositions. All the other

characteristics of a PLC flow directly from

this epic shift in assumptions about the

purpose of the school.”

Richard DuFour, Rebecca DuFour, Robert Eaker & Thomas Many

Learning by Doing

The Professional Learning Community1. Exactly what is it we want all students

to learn?

2. How will we know when each student has acquired the essential knowledge and skills?

3. What happens in our school when a student does not learn?

4. How will we respond when they already know it.

DuFour et al., Whatever It Takes, 2004. p. 21-24

Isolation Collaboration

“Schools can guarantee all students have access to the same essential outcomes only when the teachers… work together to clarify and commit to those outcomes.”

DuFour et al., Whatever It Takes, 2004. p. 60

Special Education Placement

Case Study Evaluation

Child Review Team

Mentor Program Placement

Guided Study Program

Student Assistance Team Referral

SST and Teacher Conference with Parent

Social Work Contact/Peer Mediation

Student Placement on Weekly Progress Reports

Counselor Conference with Student and Parent

Good Friend Program

Counselor Phone Calls to Parents

Counselor Meeting with Student

Counselor Watch/Survival Skills for High School

Freshman Advisory/Freshman Mentor Program

Pyramid of Interventions

DuFour et al., Whatever It Takes, 2004. p. 210

Riverside Brookfield High SchoolResponse to Interventions (RtI)

StrategiesIndividualized Strategies

Administrative Teaming, Alternative Placement,Alternative Schedule, Behavior/AcademicContracts, Classroom Observation, IEP,

504 Accommodation Plan, Intervention Teams,Outside Referrals, Progress Monitoring, Records Review,

Weekly Progress Reports

Universal StrategiesBefore School/After School Help, Articulation with Feeder Schools, CAP,

Clubs/Sports/Extra-Curricular Activities, College Planning Workshops and Programs, Common Assessments, Drug/Alcohol Prevention Presentations, Ed-Line, Freshman Orientation,

Naviance, Parent/Teacher Conferences, Progress Reports, Universal Freshman Screening, W/F List

Targeted StrategiesAcademic Support, ADA, Ambassador Program, Behavior/Academic Referrals, Blitz, Classroom

Profiles, Correspondence Courses, Counselor Watch Program, Drug & Alcohol Counseling, ESL, Executive Functioning Program, Freshman Academic Success Seminar, Learning Resource Center, National Honor Society Tutoring, Parent/Student/Counselor/Teacher

Meetings, Parent Support Groups, Progress Monitoring, Read 180, Social Worker Groups, Study Skills Course, Summer School, Credit Recovery, Transition Teams, Truancy Tickets,

Zone Program

S.M.A.R.T. GoalsS.M.A.R.T. Goals

((Specific/Measurable/Attainable/Realistic/Time Bound)Specific/Measurable/Attainable/Realistic/Time Bound)

ResultsResults by Mike Schmoker by Mike Schmoker

Big Hairy Audacious GoalsBig Hairy Audacious Goals by Jim Collins by Jim Collins

School Goal SettingSchool Goal Setting (PLC’s) by DuFour, DuFour & Eaker (PLC’s) by DuFour, DuFour & Eaker

The Carrot PrincipleThe Carrot Principle by Gostick & Elton by Gostick & Elton

Why Goals?

The The Power of Goals of GoalsProvides Focus

Sense of Accomplishment for Teachers/Students

Pride

McREL’s meta-analysis of 27 studies on successful school leadership found: Set “non-negotiable” goals for

achievement

Involve others in setting these goals

Continually monitor progress and make corrections when needed

Focus resources, especially for training, on district-wide goals

Robert Marzano &J. Timothy Waters

Create quality Create quality instructioninstruction

The Big Four

Improving Student Learning One Teacher at a Time

Jane E. Pollock

1. Create robust, clear learning targets.

2. Design lessons around benchmarks.

3. Assessment linked to targets and instruction.

4. Give criterion-based feedback.

Let’s Think About Grades…

Where did the 100-pt./A-F grading scale originate in the U.S.?

The system is supported by what mathematical principles, logic, and/or research?

Results

The 100-pt./A-F grading scale The 100-pt./A-F grading scale is flawed, arbitrary, and it is flawed, arbitrary, and it

lacks a mathematical lacks a mathematical foundation. Rethink zeroes foundation. Rethink zeroes

and uneven intervals. and uneven intervals. Consider Standards Based Consider Standards Based

grading.grading.

Uneven Intervals vs. Even Intervals

A 91+

B 81-90

C 71-80

D 61-70

F Zero

Douglas B. Reeves. The Learning Leader, 2006.

A 4

B 3

C 2

D 1

F Zero

Summary/Review

Understand & empathize with the unmotivated student

Implement formative assessment Cultivate a growth mindset Build confidence and hope Maintain a quality relationship Create relevance Beware: authoritarian attitude Maintain high expectations

Summary/Review

Differentiate instruction/formative assessment

Establish S.M.A.R.T. goals

Address test anxiety & study skill deficiencies

Rethink grading/evaluation

Utilize pyramid of interventions

Focus on learning vs. performance

Collaborate with colleagues

List at least 3 things that you will stop doing to unmotivated students.

1. ---------------------------------------------------------

2. ---------------------------------------------------------

3. ---------------------------------------------------------

4. ---------------------------------------------------------

5. ---------------------------------------------------------

Create a “start/continue to do” list of at least 3 ideas to motivate students.

1. ---------------------------------------------------------2. ---------------------------------------------------------3. ---------------------------------------------------------4. ---------------------------------------------------------5. ---------------------------------------------------------

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