Year: 2010

In teaching there are many methods and theories about what constitutes good teaching practice and classroom management.  My theory is that you should find something that works and go for it!  Once you have got the fundamentals working for you

In this post I referenced a statistic that said that studies show that on average 50% of students are not engaged, 20% are actively disengaged – the reason – not interested In Dan Pinks book ‘Drive – the surprising truth

When I first posted this I received a question that I felt was worth sharing. Question: Doesn’t student compliance come with student engagement? 🙂 My answer (expanded here):

When it comes to our understanding of management and motivation within the school system a lot of what we believe comes from the industrial revolution.  It was during the industrial revolution that people began to look at everything through the

If you take a quick look over the last couple of posts you will understand that as teachers we work in a system that relies heavily on threats and rewards.  This is not necessarily the ideal way to motivate students,

Yesterday I had the honour of speaking to the staff of Guildford Primary School and Auburn North Primary School.  Speaking at staff development days can be a daunting task, there are always those who love what you have to say

What about rewards in the classroom…do they work? How can we use extrinsic motivation in the right way?

In the last post we looked at the fact that mans greatest motivator is to make a gain or avoid a pain. When you look at this is the context of teaching, it forms a basis of everything we do. 

There are many theories and arguments around what motivates us, and in fact when it comes to education and teaching the arguments seem to become more complex (I challenge any person to take a room of 30 or so hormonal