Posts Tagged middle school

Curiosity: A strategy for encouraging students to attend

When I was in high school I had an English teacher who used a very simple strategy to interest and motivate students.  It didn’t take much time or effort on his part and was just a simple thing, but it was enough to get me to want to attend his class every single day.  What did he do?  He simply put up a new thought-provoking quote, in large letters, in the same place, on the same side chalkboard every day.

He never referred to the quote. (I suspect that intuitively he knew that doing so might produce counterwill.) He never asked our opinions or started a discussion and most often the quote was not related in the least to … >>>

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How can I motivate my students to take care in their schoolwork?

QUESTION:

I am a high school Social Studies teacher.As a teacher of a content area, I don’t penalize my students for spelling errors on their assignments as an English teacher would, but at the same time, I don’t want to give them the impression that spelling isn’t important. I’m not having much success. Once the students know that no marks will be taken off for errors, they seem to get even sloppier with their spelling!Do you have any suggestions for how I might use Discipline without Stress to motivate students in this academic situation?

RESPONSE:

One reason that I enjoy using the Discipline without Stress approach in my own teaching is that I find that the Hierarchy makes it easy >>>

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