STUDENT MOTIVATION

AND INNOVATIVE
TEACHING
Lance King
Warwick Academy
Bermuda
February 2014

Start with a preview what did we do last time?

(Finish with a review of key points covered drawn from them)

Go to the big picture todays objectives, where they fit into the whole

Vocabulary first

Teach to all senses main points something to see, hear and do

Hook visual memory coloured notes, diagrams, pictures

Encourage key word summaries

Relate constantly to real world examples

Build in opportunities for inquiry learning

Ask for clarifying questions

Evaluate your own teaching ask for feedback

Forgetting Curve

Review Curve

Start every lesson with a closed book preview of the previous

lesson what did we do last time?

Finish every lesson with a closed book review of that lesson

what did we just do?

At the end of each week have students create a summary of

the content covered in that week open book

At the end of each month have them put their weekly

summaries together into a one month summary

Biology

Biology

Biotechnology

Cells
Biology
Micro-org

Human
Plants

Biotechnology
Protozoa

Bacteria

Cells
Biology

Yeast and
mould

Micro-org

Viruses

Human

Procaryote &
Eucaryote

Pathogens

Plants

To review what works in a standard lesson

To explore the basis of student motivation to

learn

To experience some innovative teaching

techniques

To look at some innovative on-line teaching

opportunities

Always provide spelling and meaning of all

the new words students will come across in

the lesson before the lesson begins

Glossaries of technical terms

Especially for second language learners

Multi-sensory Teaching/Learning
Strategies
Visual: use video, film photographs, use colour on the board, notes,
highlighting key points in text, pictures, posters, diagrams and graphs, using
mindmaps and THOrTmaps, using visualisation, using gestures, facial
expressions, creating flowcharts of processes
Auditory: reading out loud, playing tapes, playing quiet instrumental music,
talking, describing, dictation, creating discussions or debates, using word games,
puns, jokes, asking and answering questions, telling stories, myths, using
metaphors, formal and impromptu speeches, inviting in guest speakers
Kinesthetic: having the experience, allowing standing, moving, stretch breaks,
using interactive CDs, being aware of non-verbal language, role playing, drama,
creating question and answer games, field trips, workshop and laboratory sessions,
having students teach each other, using real life examples, providing things to
touch, pull apart and put together, allowing for physical comfort, thirst, hunger,
visiting museums, exhibitions

Visual Memory

Teaching note making skills - practice yours

today

Listening for ideas

Making own interpretations

Confirming with peer feedback regularly

Focus on teaching the skills required to learn the subject

matter well

Pose questions, outline problems, set challenges, give

clear measurable objectives

Put students into small groups

Assign roles researcher, questioner, recorder, director

Give them access to the best subject based resources

Facilitate their journey

Teach questioning

Make it safe for students to ask clarifying

questions

Why is it that the longer students stay in school

the less questions they ask?

How does it feel for you to ask questions today?

On a regular basis ask your students.....

How was my teaching today?
What are some of the things I did today that helped you

understand and remember?

What are some of the things I did today that didnt help

you understand and remember?

Evaluation must be anonymous for the student and

confidential to the teacher

How many are paying attention at any one time?

20%

How much detail will they remember in 24 hours

25%

What is the attention span of an average child at

school?
7 minutes

Is it a teachers responsibility to motivate

students?

If so how?

Dan Pink on Motivation

Extrinsic motivation only works for the most basic

of tasks grades, rewards, punishments

Intrinsic motivation is needed for thinking and

learning tasks
Autonomy

Mastery
Purpose

What is the purpose of schooling?

- from the perspective of:
Owners private or state
Administrators
Teachers
Parents
Students

Is there any unifying highest purpose?

How can we help our students to focus on purpose?

Crowd control?

To help students:

To develop:

self-motivated

gain good qualifications?

self-directed

get into a good university?

self-regulated

get a good job?

prepare for life?

develop into brilliant learners?

autonomous
independent
lifelong learners?

In a learning context means the mastery of

the skills of effective learning

Do your students have all the skills they need

to learn well?

What are the top 10 learning skills students

need to succeed in your classroom?
cognitive
affective

Can you teach them directly

Recording information in class

Organising the information

Transforming information from one form to another

Time management for classes, tests, assignments

Organising the home study environment

Asking questions for understanding

Reviewing information regularly for memory

Recording information:
note making in class
key point summarising from books, teachers

talking

Time Management:
for class attendance - modelling
for completing assignments
for preparing for tests and exams

nose/ear
crossover exercises

juggling

W ater
O
F
desk/table and
chair at the
right height

light onto
the page

music without
words
instrumental

xygen
ruit instead
of high sugar
foods

1) Get time tabled use phone calendars, diaries, year planner

- whole year with exam dates

- semesters/terms with all test dates

- all assignment due dates
2) Doing assignments break each one down into steps:
a) as soon as you get an assignment mark the due date in your phone
calendar and later transfer that date to your year planner

b) timeline every assignment - mark on your year planner when you

need to have it 25% done by, 50%, 90%
c) stick to your schedule

See http://taolearn.com/seminars.php

- for video of exam study timetabling with

IGCSE students

Persistence and perseverance

Focus and concentration, overcoming distractions

Self-motivation

Courage

Reducing anxiety

Delaying gratification

Managing emotions

Developing resilience

Pick any affective skill (strategy, technique)that you would like the
class to focus on for the class or the day (eg you might pick on
concentration)

Get some analytical discussion going in the class as to what the

parameters of this skill are:
- what does concentration mean?
- what are the characteristics of concentration?
- what are some examples of times when you are
concentrating well?
- how can you tell when you are concentrating?
- how could you tell if someone else was concentrating well?
- what would be an objective measure of concentration?

Get agreement within the class so everyone is very clear about

how to recognise and measure performance of the skill.

Take the students through the following 5 steps:

1)remember a time when you were concentrating

2) close your eyes, remember that incident in detail, what

happened before that moment, during that moment and
after that moment what can you seehearhow did it
feel?
3) notice what was going on in your mind at the time when you
were concentrating, what were you saying to yourself, what
were you imagining, what else was going on?
4) Open your eyes and write all those things down, describe the
experience clearly, precisely and analytically

5) Now you know how you do it sometimes, practice doing all

those same things deliberately when next you need to
exercise that skill

Give them an exercise to complete within your subject that

causes them to practice the particular affective skill on your
subject matter

Get them to reflect on their own competence with that skill

What does courage mean?

.. doing something that you know is going to be

hard

What is the hardest thing you have ever got

yourself to do?

How did you do it?

That is your courage strategy

Level 1

Level 2

Level 3

Level 4

Novice

Learner

Practitioner

Expert

- observing

- copying

Observes others Copies others

performing tasks performance of
and using the
the skill
skill
Medium level of
High levels of
scaffolding
scaffolding from needed
teacher needed

- demonstrating - self-regulating
Can demonstrate Can teach others
the skill on
the skill
demand
No teacher
Minimal teacher scaffolding
scaffolding
required
required

What do students have control over at school?

Whether they go to school or not?

Where they go to school?
When they go to school?
What the rules are?
Who teaches them?
How they get taught?
What they get taught?
Who sets their tests and exams?
Who marks their tests and exams?

Choosing their own topics to study

Choosing their own methods of presentation

of information for assignments

Learning how to self-assess their own work

Engaging in independent learning projects

Using inquiry learning in the classroom

1)

Negotiate criteria used for your own marking

2)

Add self-assessment sheets to work

3)

Ask students to propose their own marks

4)

Negotiate grades

5)

Allow students to award their own marks for some

elements
6)

Allow students to award their own marks for the

whole assignment

Innovative teaching
Knowledge is experience,
all else is information
Imagination is more
important than knowledge
Albert Einstein
Knowledge keeps no better than fish
Alfred North Whitehead

In order to help children to learn well

we must engage them with

the experience
of their own learning

Experiential Learning

DO

LOOK

PLAN

THINK

Action, activity, trial,

example, experience,
situation, experiment

DO

Where to from
PLAN
here?
What dont I know
yet and how will I
find it out?

LOOK

THINK

What happened
there?
What are the
facts?

What does it mean?

What have I learned?
How does it connect to
ideas, concepts, theory?

Experiential Learning Teachers Perspective

DO

Have the experience

LOOK

What did you do?

Describe what happened,
objectively

THINK

What did you learn from

that?
What are the implications
that you can draw from
this exercise about
teaching and learning
generally?
Where to from here?
How could you use this
knowledge to inform your
own teaching?

PLAN

Hooks all the senses through the internal visual

Engages the imagination
Uses the power of visual metaphor to embed
serious content
Combines verbal and visual thinking
And achieves:
- movement through imagination
- multi-sensory connection with content
- high levels of understanding
- great retention of content

Role of the teacher:

- designing and writing the visualisation script
- explaining key concepts to be investigated
- establishing control, setting the mood
- reading the visualisation
- asking for reflection and questions
- making sure every student writes down a summary of the
key points correctly after the visualisation is over

Role of the student:

- listening , imagining, thinking
- reflecting, learning

Children need to move, take a break, change activities

Yrs 1 3
after 5 - 7 minutes input
Yrs 4 8
after 8 - 12 minutes
Yrs 9 12
after 13 - 20 minutes

And so do you!!
Try - energizers:
- concentrators:

- content embedders:

nose/ear
juggling
pat head, rub stomach
finger circles, leg circles
Simon Says
whole class role-plays

Hooks all the senses through the kinesthetic

Engages the imagination
Uses the power of physical metaphor to embed serious
content
Combines verbal and visual thinking

Avoids the issues of embarrassment, over-performing,

under-performing, wanting to opt out

And achieves:
- movement, energy release
- multi-sensory connection with content
- high levels of understanding
- great retention of content

Demonstrates concepts:
What is:
- current?
- a switch?
- a resistor?
- a battery?
- an ammeter?
- a fuse?
What are the differences between series and
parallel circuits?

Demonstrates concepts:
Indices of failure of potato crisps
Gas and water transmission properties of three

common, flexible plastic, packaging materials

Accelerated storage trialing of food

Role of the teacher:

- designing and writing the role play
- allocating roles
- explaining key concepts to be investigated
- controlling the action, one step at a time
- asking for reflection and questions
- making sure every student writes down a summary of the
key points correctly after the role-play is over

Role of the student:

- listening , participating, thinking
- reflecting, learning

Udacity

TED-ED

Review of the key points

Evaluation
How was my teaching today?
What are some of the things I did today that helped

you understand and remember?

What are some of the things I did today that didnt

help you understand and remember?