Boredom in the Classroom


Book Description

This brief synthesizes current findings on the many aspects of chronic student boredom, its relationship with negative academic, emotional, and health outcomes, and what professionals can do to best address it. Citing the complexity of this common student emotion, the author spotlights boredom susceptibility during the critical K-12 years. The brief analyzes cognitive and emotional attributes of boredom and identifies emotional skills that can be strengthened to counteract it. In addition, the volume features strategies for educators and school counselors to reduce boredom, both internally and in class. This stimulating volume: Argues that boredom shouldn't be ignored or dismissed as a passing phase. Examines various types of boredom as well as gender and cultural differences. Explores boredom in the contexts of anxiety and depression and in non-school situations. Provides theory on causes of boredom in students. Details how student self-regulation, motivation, and engagement can be improved. Describes specific roles teachers and mental health professionals can play in controlling boredom. Boredom in the Classroom is an essential resource for researchers, scientist-practitioners, clinicians, and graduate students in the fields of child and school psychology, educational psychology, social work, and related disciplines.




Boredom in the Foreign Language Classroom


Book Description

The book focuses on boredom, a construct that has been explored in educational psychology but has received only scant attention from second language acquisition researchers. Although recent years have seen a growing interest in positive emotions in second or foreign language learning and teaching, negative emotions are always present in the classroom and they deserve to be investigated in their own right. The theoretical part provides an overview of the construct of boredom (e.g., definitions, types, empirical studies in the L2 classroom). The empirical part reports the findings of an empirical study which aimed to examine the changes in the levels of boredom experienced by a group of English majors in English classes and identify the factors accounting for such changes. The book closes with a discussion of directions for further research as well as some pedagogic implications.




The Cambridge Handbook of Motivation and Learning


Book Description

Written by leading researchers in educational and social psychology, learning science, and neuroscience, this edited volume is suitable for a wide-academic readership. It gives definitions of key terms related to motivation and learning alongside developed explanations of significant findings in the field. It also presents cohesive descriptions concerning how motivation relates to learning, and produces a novel and insightful combination of issues and findings from studies of motivation and/or learning across the authors' collective range of scientific fields. The authors provide a variety of perspectives on motivational constructs and their measurement, which can be used by multiple and distinct scientific communities, both basic and applied.




Battling Boredom


Book Description

Drive boredom out of your classroom - and keep it out - with the student-engagement strategies in this book. You'll learn how to gain and sustain the attention of your students from the moment the bell rings. Perfect for teachers of all subjects and grade levels, these activities go head-to-head with student boredom and disengagement, resulting in class time that's more efficient, more educational, and loads more fun!Author Bryan Harris, an expert in student engagement and classroom management, has extensive experience in K-12 motivation and brain-based learning. In this book, he brings togeth.




Beat Boredom


Book Description

Are your students bored in class? According to research, a majority of American high school students report being bored in class and fewer than 5% claimed that they were rarely bored during a typical day in school. Former journalist and veteran teacher Martha Rush decided this would not do for her Minnesota students. Moving beyond asking open-ended questions and making connections to their own lives, Martha began to engage her government, journalism, and economics classes in meaty discussions, competitions, simulations, and authentic work, like running a newspaper or starting a business. Building on her more than 800 interviews with high school graduates, she offers up strategies in all subject areas for active engagement, moving way beyond traditional passive memorization of information. She describes how to create innovative experiences in your classroom, and shares her own lessons and her students' work. Beat Boredom will help you join the ranks of teachers who have challenged the status quo and found ways to motivate even the most reluctant learners.




Boredom


Book Description

In the first book to argue for the benefits of boredom, Peter Toohey dispels the myth that it's simply a childish emotion or an existential malaise like Jean-Paul Sartre's nausea. He shows how boredom is, in fact, one of our most common and constructive emotions and is an essential part of the human experience. This informative and entertaining investigation of boredom--what it is and what it isn't, its uses and its dangers--spans more than 3,000 years of history and takes readers through fascinating neurological and psychological theories of emotion, as well as recent scientific investigations, to illustrate its role in our lives. There are Australian aboriginals and bored Romans, Jeffrey Archer and caged cockatoos, Camus and the early Christians, Durer and Degas. Toohey also explores the important role that boredom plays in popular and highbrow culture and how over the centuries it has proven to be a stimulus for art and literature. Toohey shows that boredom is a universal emotion experienced by humans throughout history and he explains its place, and value, in today's world. "Boredom: A Lively History "is vital reading for anyone interested in what goes on when supposedly nothing happens.




Why They Can't Write


Book Description

An important challenge to what currently masquerades as conventional wisdom regarding the teaching of writing. There seems to be widespread agreement that—when it comes to the writing skills of college students—we are in the midst of a crisis. In Why They Can't Write, John Warner, who taught writing at the college level for two decades, argues that the problem isn't caused by a lack of rigor, or smartphones, or some generational character defect. Instead, he asserts, we're teaching writing wrong. Warner blames this on decades of educational reform rooted in standardization, assessments, and accountability. We have done no more, Warner argues, than conditioned students to perform "writing-related simulations," which pass temporary muster but do little to help students develop their writing abilities. This style of teaching has made students passive and disengaged. Worse yet, it hasn't prepared them for writing in the college classroom. Rather than making choices and thinking critically, as writers must, undergraduates simply follow the rules—such as the five-paragraph essay—designed to help them pass these high-stakes assessments. In Why They Can't Write, Warner has crafted both a diagnosis for what ails us and a blueprint for fixing a broken system. Combining current knowledge of what works in teaching and learning with the most enduring philosophies of classical education, this book challenges readers to develop the skills, attitudes, knowledge, and habits of mind of strong writers.




The Smart Classroom Management Way


Book Description

The Smart Classroom Management Way is a collection of the very best writing from ten years of Smart Classroom Management (SCM). It isn't, however, simply a random mix of popular articles. It's a comprehensive work that encompasses every principle, theme, and methodology of the SCM approach. The book is laid out across six major areas of classroom management and includes the most pressing issues, problems, and concerns shared by all teachers. The underlying SCM themes of accountability, maturity, independence, personal responsibility, and intrinsic motivation are all there and weave their way throughout the entirety of the book. Together, they form a simple, unique, and sometimes contrarian approach to classroom management that anyone can do. Whether you're an elementary, middle, or high school teacher, The Smart Classroom Management Way will give you the strategies, skills, and know-how to turn any group of students into the motivated, well-behaved class you love teaching.




The Total Classroom Management Makeover


Book Description

"Michael Linsin is the Shakespeare of smart classroom management, and his 18 lessons can transform American public education." --Eva Moskowitz, Founder and CEO of Success Academy Schools The Total Classroom Management Makeover is a condensed shortcut to effective classroom management. Presented as simple dos and don'ts, the 18 lessons you'll learn have been boiled down to the bare essentials and written in the most accessible way possible. Together, they form an innovative approach to teaching and managing behavior that is specifically and uniquely designed to create within each student strong intrinsic desire to listen, learn, and behave. The result is a tough-minded, hardworking, well-behaved class and the satisfaction of knowing that you're making a lasting impact on your students, your community, and the wider world.




Create Captivating Classes


Book Description

It’s a challenge every teacher faces… finding ways to get and keep the attention of their students; getting them to engage fully in the lessons. In today’s world of constant connection to media and entertainment through television and the Internet, it is harder than ever. Add to that the pressures of NCLB, Common Core State Standards, and the Danielson evaluation model putting full responsibility for student learning and growth on the teacher and we have reached a crisis. How can teachers compete with this constant stream of personalized entertainment? They must learn to think and teach as entertainers! This is not as revolutionary a concept as it may sound. The word “entertain” is defined as “to pleasantly hold attention.” So teachers already “entertain” their students. So no problem, right? Wrong. Teachers are now competing for the attention of their students. And the competition is fierce. They are up against professional entertainers who have spent years studying the art of entertainment without having to worry about teaching as well. Teachers are trained in their subjects, but not in the methods and techniques used by entertainment professionals. Teachers must learn to plan and to think as the professional entertainers do. Only then can they effectively compete. Only then can they Create Captivating Classes! Christopher Bontjes has more than 40 years of experience in designing shows and entertaining audiences of all ages from the stage. He also has more than 25 years of experience as a classroom teacher. Because his teaching specialty is music, he has had the opportunity to teach students ranging in age from Kindergarten through adult. In Create Captivating Classes: Why NCLB Should Mean No Child Left Bored, Bontjes shares the techniques used by entertainment professionals to keep audiences glued to their seats and begging for more. He then applies each technique to the classroom, showing teachers, step-by-step, how to use each idea in the classroom to keep students riveted to lessons and anxious to learn more. These ideas and techniques are effective with all students. They work regardless of age or socio-economic background. They work not because of who students are, but because of what students are – HUMAN! Every teacher has students they struggle to reach. Create Captivating Classes will add a myriad of new ideas to your educational “bag of tricks.” Order your copy today and learn to Create Captivating Classes!