This article elaborates a presentation made upon reception of the E. L. Thorndike Career Achievement Award in Educational Psychology from Division 15 of the American Psychological Association. It considers how value aspects of motivation apply to efforts to develop students' appreciation for school learning. Currently, we have only limited…

A high school teacher describes techniques she used to help her students master a list of 500 commonly misspelled words. She found that this emphasis on spelling also improved students' reading comprehension, writing, and study skills. The word list is appended. (SJL)

Artists and writers from Maine were asked to develop creative activities for a sixth-grade class. Students were encouraged to observe nature, investigate their ancestors, design logos, and think about the impossible. Several of the activities that could be adopted to relate to other states are presented. (DF)

Offers guidelines to help elementary teachers motivate underachievers to work. The article recommends encouraging effort by making assigned tasks realistic, focusing students' attention on their own progress, rewarding all effort, giving all students a chance to demonstrate competence in class, and letting students set their own goals. (SM)

Presented is an instructional module designed to assist teachers in understanding and developing plans for motivating students. The instructor's guide contains objectives, learning activities, a pre-post test, and extending activities. Also included is a set of materials for participating teachers to use in conjunction with the learning activities…

Student handouts which are written "tongue-in-cheek" tell the student to do exactly the opposite of what should be done to improve study skills. Reasons given for using a paradoxical teaching approach are to create an element of surprise, to increase attention, to encourage identification with what is being taught, to increase awareness…

This book is the result of the collaborative effort of nine AYA National Board Certified Teachers in Mathematics. Experiencing Mathematics, is a compilation of teacher-tested activities that prompt high school students to explore, conjecture and reflect on their mathematical adventures--thus "experience mathematics." The relevant nature of the…

Nine activities are presented in which the calculator can be used to create interest in the study of fractions. Estimation skills are emphasized. (MNS)

Offers calculus students and teachers the opportunity to motivate and discover the first Fundamental Theorem of Calculus (FTC) in an experimental, experiential, inductive, intuitive, vernacular-based manner. Starting from the observation that a distance traveled at a constant speed corresponds to the area inside a rectangle, the FTC is discovered,…

This collection of activities shows how teachers can help pupils develop problem-solving techniques or strategies using a basic four-function calculator. The techniques "look for a pattern,""make a chart or organized list," and "guess and check" are used repeatedly in activities that range from discovery to application to strategy games. The…

This module, one in a series of 127 performance-based teacher education (PBTE) learning packages, focuses upon specific professional competencies of vocational teachers. The competencies upon which these modules are based were identified and verified through research as being important to successful vocational teaching at both the secondary and…

The view that geometry should be taught at every grade level is promoted. Primary and elementary school children are thought to rarely have any direct experience with geometry, except on an incidental basis. Children are supposed to be able to learn geometry rather easily, so long as the method and content are adapted to their development and…

Problem solving is viewed as an ability required throughout life, and how we function is seen to be directly related to how well we solve problems. In this document, the issue of a steady decline in students' abilities in the area of mathematical problem solving is confronted and a program designed to teach students the necessary skills in this…

These workshop modules focus on helping teachers to expand their self image, to make explicit the mental image of a nonsexist person, and to help their students recognize and internalize their own mental pictures of nonsexist behaviors. Handouts include profiles of nonsexist behavior, fictionalized examples of nonsexist behavior, a self assessment…

This student workbook is designed to accompany the textbook, "Behavior Management Strategies for Teachers," helping to reinforce understanding of the basic principles described in the companion textbook. It presents a summary of the key concepts in each of the workbook's 15 chapters. Questions in this student workbook are based on each…