Student Motivation and Quality of Life in Higher Education


Book Description

Higher education is a high stakes process involving engagement with curricula and often entails coping with the onslaught of assessments and examinations. This process creates a level of intensity that impacts on the student experience in higher education. It is, therefore, important to consider not only the motivational aspects of learning but also quality of life issues, as they have profound effects on students. Quality of life affects the way students interact with their formal education, and has wide-reaching effects on future careers and their ability to coordinate everyday events. Integrating these two concepts, student motivation and quality of life, brings together the explicit elements that underpin learning in the higher education context, creating links between the affective and social aspects of the student life. This synthesis is integral to improving student retention and quality of life and has important ramifications for educationalists, administrators, pastoral care and academic support service personnel, and students themselves. Some highlights of the book include: Applied Positive Psychology in Higher Education Internationalisation and Quality of Life: A Taiwanese Perspective The Computer Assisted Learning for the Mind (CALM) Website: Teaching Skills to Increase Resilience The Oxford University Peer Support Programme: Addressing the Wellbeing of Students Higher Education and Student Stress: Reclaiming Light, Liberty and Learning Improving academic quality of life through attribution- and motivation-focused counselling




Student Motivation and Quality of Life in Higher Education


Book Description

Higher education is a high stakes process involving engagement with curricula and often entails coping with the onslaught of assessments and examinations. This process creates a level of intensity that impacts on the student experience in higher education. It is, therefore, important to consider not only the motivational aspects of learning but also quality of life issues, as they have profound effects on students. Quality of life affects the way students interact with their formal education, and has wide-reaching effects on future careers and their ability to coordinate everyday events. Integrating these two concepts, student motivation and quality of life, brings together the explicit elements that underpin learning in the higher education context, creating links between the affective and social aspects of the student life. This synthesis is integral to improving student retention and quality of life and has important ramifications for educationalists, administrators, pastoral care and academic support service personnel, and students themselves. Some highlights of the book include: Applied Positive Psychology in Higher Education Internationalisation and Quality of Life: A Taiwanese Perspective The Computer Assisted Learning for the Mind (CALM) Website: Teaching Skills to Increase Resilience The Oxford University Peer Support Programme: Addressing the Wellbeing of Students Higher Education and Student Stress: Reclaiming Light, Liberty and Learning Improving academic quality of life through attribution- and motivation-focused counselling




From Behaving to Belonging


Book Description

Challenging behavior is one of the most significant issues educators face. Though it may seem radical to use words like love, compassion, and heart when we talk about behavior and discipline, the compassionate and heartfelt words, actions, and strategies teachers employ in the classroom directly shape who students are—and who they will become. But how can teaching from the heart translate into effective supports and practices for students who exhibit challenging behavior? In From Behaving to Belonging, Julie Causton and Kate MacLeod detail how teachers can shift from a "behavior management" mindset (that punishes students for "bad" behavior or rewards students for "good" or "compliant" behavior) to an approach that supports all students—even the most challenging ones—with kindness, creativity, acceptance, and love. Causton and MacLeod's approach * Focuses on students' strengths, gifts, and talents. * Ignites students' creativity and sense of self-worth. * Ensures that students' social, emotional, and academic needs are met. * Prompts teachers to rethink challenging behavior and how they support their students. * Helps teachers identify barriers to student success in the cultural, social, and environmental landscape. * Inspires teachers to reconnect with their core values and beliefs about students and teaching. We need to transform our classrooms into places of love. To that end, this book represents a paradigm shift from a punitive mindset to a strengths-based, loving approach and encourages the radical act of creating more inclusive and caring schools.




Wellbeing in Higher Education


Book Description

Academic staff and students within higher education settings are confronted by a learning environment that is academically stimulating, informative, career-focused and socially rich, which can be intensely competitive and highly charged. Within this learning environment, academic staff and students are often at risk of compromising their wellbeing in their pursuit of academic excellence. This book provides an examination of the key areas that are important to the sustenance of wellbeing within higher education settings, with a view to promoting healthy learning environments. The chapter authors are predominantly working in the Asia-Pacific rim, but the book also includes more universal perspectives. The synthesis of the issues covered in the book is crucial to the understanding of higher education as not only an environment for gaining knowledge and skills relevant for success in academic and career domains, but also as an environment for developing socially adept and authentic communication skills. The ideas presented in this book will further assist academic staff and students to consider ways to more fully participate in their learning environment so that they can optimize their valuable contributions to the professional communities they serve.




Promoting Lifelong Learning for Older Workers


Book Description

This publication contains a number of essays which explore issues relating to population ageing and the needs of older workers from a lifelong learning perspective. Although the focus is on European experiences, it also includes contributions from Australia, Japan and the United States. The central argument of this book is that ageing must be seen as a lifelong learning and development process in which one continuously takes on new life challenges; and in the context of work, lifelong learning is understood as a broad, holistic concept which encompasses individual education and training, as well as participative workplace learning actively supported by employers.




Engaging Language Learners in Contemporary Classrooms


Book Description

This accessible book offers a fresh perspective on engagement, with an emphasis on how teachers can create the conditions for active engagement and the role learners can play in shaping the way they learn. Drawing on extensive theoretical knowledge, the book takes an applied approach, providing clear principles and practical strategies for teachers.




Motivation for Achievement


Book Description

Understanding student and teacher motivation and developing strategies to foster motivation for students at all levels of performance are essential to effective teaching. This text is designed to help prospective and practicing teachers achieve these goals. Its premise is that current research and theory about motivation offer hope and possibilities for educators —teachers, parents, coaches, and administrators—to enhance motivation for achievement. The orientation draws primarily on social-cognitive perspectives that have generated much research relevant to classroom practice. Ideal for any course that is dedicated to, or includes coverage of, motivation and achievement, the text focuses on two key roles teachers play in supporting and cultivating motivation in the classroom: establishing the classroom structure and instruction that provides the environment for optimal motivation, engagement, and learning; and helping students develop the tools that will enable them to be self-regulated learners and develop their potential. Pedagogical features aid the understanding of concepts and the application to practice: Strategy boxes present guidelines and strategies for using the various concepts. Exhibit boxes include forms for different purposes (for example, goal setting), examples of teacher beliefs and practices, and samples of student work. Reflection boxes stimulate readers’ thinking about motivational issues inherent in the topics, their experiences, and their beliefs. A motivational toolbox at the end of each chapter helps readers identify important points to think about, lingering questions, strategies to use now, and strategies to develop in the future. NEW IN THE THIRD EDITION Updated research and new topics are added throughout as warranted by current inquiry in the field. Chapters are reorganized to provide more coherence and to account for new findings. New and updated material is included on issues of educational reform, standards for achievement, and high-stakes testing, and on achievement goal theory, especially regarding performance goals and the distinction between performance-approach and performance-avoidance goals as relevant to classroom practice.




How People Learn II


Book Description

There are many reasons to be curious about the way people learn, and the past several decades have seen an explosion of research that has important implications for individual learning, schooling, workforce training, and policy. In 2000, How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School: Expanded Edition was published and its influence has been wide and deep. The report summarized insights on the nature of learning in school-aged children; described principles for the design of effective learning environments; and provided examples of how that could be implemented in the classroom. Since then, researchers have continued to investigate the nature of learning and have generated new findings related to the neurological processes involved in learning, individual and cultural variability related to learning, and educational technologies. In addition to expanding scientific understanding of the mechanisms of learning and how the brain adapts throughout the lifespan, there have been important discoveries about influences on learning, particularly sociocultural factors and the structure of learning environments. How People Learn II: Learners, Contexts, and Cultures provides a much-needed update incorporating insights gained from this research over the past decade. The book expands on the foundation laid out in the 2000 report and takes an in-depth look at the constellation of influences that affect individual learning. How People Learn II will become an indispensable resource to understand learning throughout the lifespan for educators of students and adults.




Student Success in College


Book Description

Student Success in College describes policies, programs, and practices that a diverse set of institutions have used to enhance student achievement. This book clearly shows the benefits of student learning and educational effectiveness that can be realized when these conditions are present. Based on the Documenting Effective Educational Practice (DEEP) project from the Center for Postsecondary Research at Indiana University, this book provides concrete examples from twenty institutions that other colleges and universities can learn from and adapt to help create a success-oriented campus culture and learning environment.




Student Motivation


Book Description

This book presents the latest developments in the major theories of student motivation as well as up-to-date research on the contextual and cultural variables that influence learning motivation in educational settings. An international roster of experts provides ample illustration of the complexities that are revealed when the study of cultural and contextual interactions is combined with motivational and cognitive variables.