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Free reading motivation program

Oracle's website for Thinkquest, a competition based on Science competition for K-12

Projects provide a flexible framework for engaging students in exploring curricular topics and developing important 21st century skills, such as communication, teamwork, and technology skills. In addition, students are motivated by the fun and creative format and the opportunity to make new friends around the world. For teachers, a school portal enables quick and easy management of student accounts and review of project work.

Gamification is the application of game elements in nongaming situations, often to motivate or influence behavior

While students do Khan Academy, teacher can show "Class Energy Points Per Minute" data for motivation: http://bit.ly/gbGqIH #factorymodel

Studyladder is a highly effective, logically organised, Mathematics and Literacy program. It has been developed by experienced educators to inspire and motivate learning. It is suitable for Primary and Junior High School students and is very easy to use - students simply login with a username and password to access all the learning materials.

What if we applied the psychology of what makes technology attractive to students...to our practices in the classroom? Using this idea, in addition to using more technology in the classroom, why not design the traditional human / face-to-face classroom experience to be more like what makes technology so engrossing to modern students? Do these principles sound familiar... Deliver information in bite sized chunks, Create mental models, Use short stories to help process information, Learning happens and is remembered through repetition, People are motivated by Progress and Mastery, Sustained attention lasts 10 minutes, and the use of Progressive Disclosure. Here are 100 little articles that could have big implications in the classroom.

A superb site to download behaviour charts, stickers, pictures and lots more to keep your class motivated. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Classroom+Management+%26+Rewards

Pretty cool online calculator. Students might be motivated to explore numbers by playing around with this calculator/spreadsheet.

"Conversation is key . Sawyer succinctly explains this principle: "Conversation leads to flow, and flow leads to creativity." When having students work in groups, consider what will spark rich conversation. The original researcher on flow, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, found that rich conversation precedes and ignites flow more than any other activity.1 Tasks that require (or force) interaction lead to richer collaborative conceptualization. Set a clear but open-ended goal . Groups produce the richest ideas when they have a goal that will focus their interaction but also has fluid enough boundaries to allow for creativity. This is a challenge we often overlook. As teachers, we often have an idea of what a group's final product should look like (or sound like, or…). If we put students into groups to produce a predetermined outcome, we prevent creative thinking from finding an entry point. Try not announcing time limits. As teachers we often use a time limit as a "motivator" that we hope will keep group work focused. In reality, this may be a major detractor from quality group work. Deadlines, according to Sawyer, tend to impede flow and produce lower quality results. Groups produce their best work in low-pressure situations. Without a need to "keep one eye on the clock," the group's focus can be fully given to the task. Do not appoint a group "leader." In research studies, supervisors, or group leaders, tend to subvert flow unless they participate as an equal, listening and allowing the group's thoughts and decisions to guide the interaction. Keep it small. Groups with the minimum number of members that are needed to accomplish a task are more efficient and effective. Consider weaving together individual and group work. For additive tasks-tasks in whicha group is expectedtoproduce a list, adding one idea to another-research suggests that better results develop

Moodle for Motivation!

"I admit this title makes a pretty bold statement for a society that pretty much uses the first five letters of the alphabet to define every child from about age 5 until adulthood. But, I am hearing more and more about the use of badges in the classroom, especially in conversations about gamification and self motivation."

I have been trying out some grading apps and am intrigued by ActivGrade because instead of being focused on a letter grade A-F, I could see students being more concerned with mastering a goal. Their "grade" is a color toward mastery of a standard. Red means I have a lot of work to do to master this, yellow means I'm making progress toward mastery and green means I've mastered this goal at this point. One grading algorithm to choose from in the app is a calculation which puts a 75% weight on the student's most recent assignment for a given concept. This means that as I get better at a skill, my most recent attempt at showing my mastery over the skill is worth more for my grade than my prior attempts. This seems like smart grading practice to me.

A single change to the classroom environment-professor presence-impacted memory performance, as well as motivation and interest

"Ask a group of teachers why they entered the profession and I guarantee you'll get responses like "I had a teacher who was inspirational to me" and "to make a difference to young people". Certainly, I went into the profession with a desire to help and support others and that hasn't changed. In my experience, this is pretty typical of most people who work in education- their motivation is usually based around a selfless and giving attitude and sense of purpose."

"Across very different cultures - Ghana and the United States - when parents acknowledge the perspectives of their adolescent children and encourage them to express themselves, the youths have a stronger sense of self-worth, intrinsic motivation, and engagement, and also have less depression. Yet having the latitude to make decisions appears to function differently in the two cultures, with positive outcomes for youths in the United States but not in Ghana."