Synthesizes the conclusions drawn from a literature review on principles for motivating students to learn. Outlines numerous pointers for creating essential learning preconditions and for motivating, including maintaining high expectations, supplying extrinsic incentives, and capitalizing on students' intrinsic motivation. Provides strategies for…

Creativity requires application and balancing of three abilities--the synthetic, the analytic, and the practical. Teachers should serve as creativity role models, encourage questioning of assumptions, allow mistakes, encourage sensible risk taking, design creative assignments and assessments, let students define problems, and reward creative ideas…

Using brain-based research, Douglass Elementary School in Boulder, Colorado, looked at the natural assets that both girls and boys bring to school and realized that its classrooms were generally a better fit for the verbal-emotive, sit-still, take-notes, listen-carefully, multitasking girl. Teachers tended to see the natural assets that boys bring…