Motivating Disengaged
Students Useful Methods and
Ideas for Educators
Jack Baldermann
708-243-0597
jackbaldermann@gmail.com
THE COMMUNITY ENTRUSTS TO
US WHAT IS MOST SACRED IN
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
sometimes
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
Motivation: Strategies for Success
Build Strong
Relationships
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 Relationships
 Offer
constructive feedback
that leads to a growth
mindset
 Believe and care
 Small victories
 Focus 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 Assessment
Competence 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 Curriculum
Traditional Format

Reading Assignment Given (or activity)

Independent Reading/Doing

Discussion to see if students learned the main concepts
Phase I

Frontloading Key:
Vocabulary, Big Ideas, Clarify Purpose, Mental Anchors, Questions, etc.
Phase II

Teacher Mediated
Teach strategies directly
Read more than once
Chunk text
Structured discussion
Graphic 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
Learn
first to understand
their story
Problem-solve
together
Difficult Conversations
 Think

like a mediator
Consider 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 Community
1.
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
Pyramid of Interventions
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
DuFour et al., Whatever It Takes, 2004. p. 210
Riverside Brookfield High School
Response to Interventions (RtI) Strategies
Individualized Strategies
Administrative Teaming, Alternative Placement,
Alternative Schedule, Behavior/Academic
Contracts, Classroom Observation, IEP,
504 Accommodation Plan, Intervention Teams,
Outside Referrals, Progress Monitoring, Records Review,
Weekly Progress Reports
Targeted Strategies
Academic 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
Universal Strategies
Before 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
S.M.A.R.T. Goals
(Specific/Measurable/Attainable/Realistic/Time Bound)
Results by Mike Schmoker
Big Hairy Audacious Goals by Jim Collins
School Goal Setting (PLC’s) by DuFour, DuFour & Eaker
The Carrot Principle by Gostick & Elton
Why Goals?
 The
Power of Goals

Provides 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
instruction
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./AF 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
is flawed, arbitrary, and it
lacks a mathematical
foundation. Rethink zeroes
and uneven intervals.
Consider Standards Based
grading.
Uneven Intervals vs. Even Intervals
A
91+
A
4
B
81-90
B
3
C
71-80
C
2
D
61-70
D
1
F
Zero
F
Zero
Douglas B. Reeves. The Learning Leader, 2006.
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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