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Six Ways To Help Students Motivate Themselves(Editor’s note: Today’s post is the latest of a few excerpts from our new book, The Better Teacher’s Toolbox, that I’ll be publishing here over the next two months. You can order the book here, and access more free resources from it here).
RELEVANCELinking Lessons to Personal GoalsRegularly asking students to identify how what they are learning might be able to help them in their lives or future careers has been found to increase motivation and academic achievement. There are two ways to facilitate this kind of self-generation of relevance. One is being more direct in asking students to connect a specific lesson to their lives, and the other is having them choose any school content and describe how it is relevant to them. We do the former pretty simply—periodically, we just ask students to write a short paragraph explaining how they think what they learned that day in our class or in the recent unit can be helpful to them in their lives. After they write about this kind of learning transfer, we have them share through a “speed-dating” system. Many get even more ideas after they hear from their classmates. The second version—where students can choose any school content and describe its relevance—we use for a more extended lesson. Character Lab created a specific “Build Connections” lesson that we like a lot and is freely available online. Students make one list of their interests and goals, then right next to it a list of topics they have learned about in class. They are then asked to make lines connecting as many of the two different lists as possible. Finally, they choose one from each column and explain in a short paragraph how they are connected. Again, students share in a “speed-dating” style. As opposed to students self-generating how class content is connected to their lives, direct communication simply means teachers explaining how it’s relevant. Some researchers have found that, though this method might be effective with students who perceive themselves as well-skilled academically, it may actually be de-motivating for others for various reasons. Some contributing factors could be because it may be viewed as a condescending message and/or they may want to reassert autonomy. Other research, however, suggests that teachers pointing out connections is better than not discussing them at all, especially if those connections are more near term (the math we’re learning will help you figure out how to get the best car loan) than far term (the math we’re learning will help you purchase a house). We previously discussed the value of a student goal-setting process that focused on “process goals” rather than their ultimate goals. This kind of prioritization is important, but it doesn’t mean we should completely ignore discussing ultimate/long-term goals. Having students identify their longer-term goals, and then having them identify process goals—or steps they can take—to achieve them can be an important strategy for identifying the relevance to them of what is happening in the classroom. For example, “Luis,” one of Larry’s English Language Learner students, showed no interest in learning English. He said he was planning to return to Mexico and join the military. Larry asked if he was planning on being a private or if he wanted to be an officer. Luis replied that he wanted to be an officer. Larry then asked him where he thought they sent their best officers for training. Comprehension dawned on Luis’ face—the United States, he answered. Though he did not become super-engaged after that interaction, Luis certainly showed much more interest than before in class. Piquing CuriosityPiquing students’ curiosity, sometimes called the “curiosity gap,” can make content relevant because students are eager to scratch that itch. Inductive learning is an instructional strategy puts students in the role of a detective using clues to solve the case—in effect, creating a curiosity gap to fill. And, boy oh boy, reactance lessons can spark a curiosity gap on steroids. The levels of student outrage increase after they learn each new way corporations try to manipulate them to bet, smoke, or buy junk food! In fact, just about any potential controversial topic—and which school subject doesn‘t have a long list of topics that could fit under that description—could serve a similar purpose, though you probably want to take care, talk to your administrator, and consider the political situation of your local school community before deciding on which ones to introduce to the class—no one benefits from your getting fired! Connecting Lessons to Student InterestsInstead of pushing students to connect what you want to teach, another option is to consider what they want you to teach. Putting this into action could range from inviting students to bring in texts (written or otherwise) that they like—music lyrics, TikTok videos, comics, TV shoes, fan fiction, and, yes, books—that the class could use for analysis (requiring, of course, that their language be classroom appropriate) to teachers taking into consideration what they know of their students’ interests into their lesson planning. For example, if you have many football fans in class, there’s no reason why in January you couldn’t use Super Bowl ads as a centerpiece of a unit on argument and persuasion.
     The Best Research On How Having Books In The Home Helps Students
Matt Barnum recently wrote in Chalkbeat about studying showing giving books to students to help build their home libraries helps academic achievement. I’ve written about previous studies, and different projects we did with the Davis Friends of the Library to help students at my old school to get books into their homes. Here are some of those posts: “Home Libraries Provide Huge Educational Advantage” Very Accessible Report On The Importance Of Home Libraries A Book in Every Home, and Then Some is a useful article in the New York Times about efforts to get books to low-income families. It contains links to some useful studies. Books in the Home Are Strongly Linked to Academic Achievement is from Pacific Standard. Statistic Of The Day: It’s Good To Have Books At Home STUDY: BOOKS AROUND THE HOUSE HELP KIDS, EVEN IF THEY DON’T READ THEM New Research Reveals the Power of a Large Home Library (Even If You Don’t Read Every Book) is from Inc.
You might also be interested in Best Posts On Books: Why They’re Important & How To Help Students Select, Read, Write & Discuss Them.  SEL Weekly Update
I’ve begun this weekly post where I’ll be sharing resources I’m adding to The Best Social Emotional Learning (SEL) Resources or other related “Best” lists. Also, check out “Best” Lists Of The Week: Social Emotional Learning Resources. Here are this week’s picks: Integrating Social and Emotional Learning in Math Class is from Edutopia. How To Stop Procrastinating (According To Science) is from Charles Duhigg. I’m adding it to The Best Resources For Teaching Students About The Dangers Of Procrastination. Four Habits to Help Teens Build Better Habits is from MindShift. I’m adding it to THE BEST RESOURCES FOR HELPING STUDENTS – & US – DEVELOP GOOD HABITS.  I’m adding this post to The Best Resources For Helping Teens Learn About The Importance Of Sleep:
I’m adding this post to Best Posts About Helping Students Develop Their Capacity For Self-Control:
 YouTube Announce Live “Auto-Dubbing” Coming In Early 2027 & [I Think] It Could Help Teachers & Students geralt / Pixabay
Translation can be a challenge for ELL students and their teachers, particularly when Newcomers are parachuted into regular classes and no additional support is provided to them or their teachers. And, with the dramatic reduction in Newcomers across the United States because of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, this situation is occurring more-and-more. There are a number of simultaneous translation tools that can now help with this, and you can find many of them at THE BEST RESOURCES TO HELP ELL STUDENTS WITH SIMULTANEOUS TRANSLATION IN THE CLASSROOM. Today, YouTube announced a new coming feature that might be another useful workaround. You might or might not be familiar with that platform’s “auto-dubbing” tool that allows videos to have automatic dubbing into different languages. That has been, and continues to be, useful for teachers who create videos for students to watch at home if they’re using the flipped classroom model. In today’s announcement, though, YouTube says they’re bringing that ability to livestreams, so that it will offer that kind of auto-dubbing live. If that’s the case, it seems to me that a teacher could LiveStream their class, make it unlisted so that only people in the class can watch it, while a Newcomer with headphones watches it on their Chromebook hearing everything translated into their home language. There may very well be better options on the previously mentioned “Best” list, and this may be more trouble than it’s worth, but it seems to me it’s worth considering. Of course, YouTube says it won’t be working until early 2027, and they have a long history of making announcements about new features that a substantially delayed.  This Week’s Free & Useful Artificial Intelligence Tools For The Classroom geralt / Pixabay
At least, for now, I’m going to make this a weekly feature which will highlight additions to THE BEST NEW – & FREE – ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE TOOLS THAT COULD BE USED IN THE CLASSROOM: Pose any question to Arbor and it will develop a “knowledge tree” of research papers answering it.
Is Your Student Writing or Just “Prompting”? How to Spot AI Without the Fancy Tools is from Blog de Cristina. I’m adding AI Footprints Estimator for Students to A Beginning List Of The Best Resources For Teaching About Artificial Intelligence.
 I’m adding this tweet to The Best Resources For Creating Infographics: Watch the video here.  More Recent Articles
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