Ian Gilbert takes the reader on a rollercoaster ride through the theories of teaching. On the way the author highlights seven key factors that affect motivation and offers a range of strategies to help teachers implement and use them at the chalk face.

Teachers around the world have found Ian Gilbert’s classic text Essential Motivation in the Classroom an inspiring and provocative read. This ground-breaking companion to the book is a definitive one-stop guide for teachers who are looking for inspiration into how his ideas can be put into practice in every-day classrooms. A truly lively and engaging resource, it scrutinises each aspect of Gilbert’s now famous ‘seven keys’ of motivation and provides a wide range of practical ideas, activities and launch-pads for discussion which can be blended seamlessly into your own lessons. Taking as its starting point the right of every child to an inspirational education that develops their values, attitudes and skills, this book provides you with the means to unlock even your most challenging of pupils and will act as a spring board for visionary learning in the classroom and beyond, Key ideas explored include: • Goal setting strategies • Students’ own intrinsic motivation • Preparing effective challenges • Developing multiple approaches to learning • Using physical activities to anchor learning • Helping students to understand themselves better and be better prepared for the world today For teachers of pupils at all ages and stages, this book is easy to follow, easy to ‘dip in and out of’, is conversational in tone, and has the potential to be a game-changer for any teacher wishing reinvigorate their pupils, colleagues and classrooms.

Combining a lively voice with scientific research, Learning Grows explores the fascinating and useful world of student motivation. Written for teachers—and everyone interested in teaching and learning—Learning Grows helps classrooms flourish by fostering students’ intrinsic motivation. Part I delves into Mindset. Although seemingly well known, this theory is often oversimplified and widely misunderstood. By exploring its step-by-step historical development, we can use it more flexibly and effectively to help learners ‘charge!’ when they might otherwise ‘retreat.’ Part II enters the paradoxical world of Stereotype Threat. A surprising cascade of counter-intuitive effects can cause students to struggle in school—not because they don’t care, but because they work too hard. The right classroom strategies block this demotivational pathway, and thereby foster student learning. By interleaving psychology and neuroscience research with dozens of practical classroom examples, Learning Grows makes these two theories both clear and immediately useful. Learning Grows is the second book in the series “A Teacher’s Guide to the Learning Brain.” The first book, Learning Begins, studies the science of working memory and attention.

Helping teachers understand and apply theory and research is one of the most challenging tasks of teacher preparation and professional development. As they learn about motivation and engagement, teachers need conceptually rich, yet easy-to-use, frameworks. At the same time, teachers must understand that student engagement is not separate from development, instructional decision-making, classroom management, student relationships, and assessment. This volume on teaching teachers about motivation addresses these challenges. The authors share multiple approaches and frameworks to cut through the growing complexity and variety of motivational theories, and tie theory and research to real-world experiences that teachers are likely to encounter in their courses and classroom experiences. Additionally, each chapter is summarized with key “take away” practices. A shared perspective across all the chapters in this volume on teaching teachers about motivation is “walking the talk.” In every chapter, readers will be provided with rich examples of how research on and principles of classroom motivation can be re-conceptualized through a variety of college teaching strategies. Teachers and future teachers learning about motivation need to experience explicit modeling, practice, and constructive feedback in their college courses and professional development in order to incorporate those into their own practice. In addition, a core assumption throughout this volume is the importance of understanding the situated nature of motivation, and avoiding a “one-size-fits” all approach in the classroom. Teachers need to fully interrogate their instructional practices not only in terms of motivational principles, but also for their cultural relevance, equity, and developmental appropriateness. Just like P-12 students, college students bring their histories as learners and beliefs about motivation to their formal study of motivation. That is why college instructors teaching motivation must begin by helping students evaluate their personal beliefs and experiences. Relatedly, college instructors need to know their students and model differentiating their interactions to support each of them. The authors in this volume have, collectively, decades of experience teaching at the college level and conducting research in motivation, and provide readers with a variety of strategies to help teachers and future teachers explore how motivation is supported and undermined. In each chapter in this volume, readers will learn how college instructors can demonstrate what effective, motivationally supportive classrooms look, sound, and feel like.

Why do I need a teacher when I’ve got Google? is just one of the challenging, controversial and thought-provoking questions Ian Gilbert poses in this urgent and invigorating book. Questioning the unquestionable, this fully updated new edition will make you re-consider everything you thought you knew about teaching and learning, such as: • Are you simply preparing the next generation of unemployed accountants? • What do you do for the ‘sweetcorn kids’ who come out of the education system in pretty much the same state as when they went in? • What’s the real point of school? • Exams – So whose bright idea was that? • Why ‘EQ’ is fast becoming the new ‘IQ’. • What will your school policy be on brain-enhancing technologies? • Which is the odd one out between a hamster and a caravan? With his customary combination of hard-hitting truths, practical classroom ideas and irreverent sense of humour, Ian Gilbert takes the reader on a breathless rollercoaster ride through burning issues of the twenty-first century, considering everything from the threats facing the world and the challenge of the BRIC economies to the link between eugenics and the 11+. As wide-ranging and exhaustively-researched as it is entertaining and accessible, this book is designed to challenge teachers and inform them – as well as encourage them – as they strive to design a twenty-first century learning experience that really does bring the best out of all young people. After all, the future of the world may just depend on it

Teachers around the world have found Ian Gilbert’s classic text Essential Motivation in the Classroom an inspiring and provocative read. This ground-breaking companion to the book is a definitive one-stop guide for teachers who are looking for inspiration into how his ideas can be put into practice in every-day classrooms. A truly lively and engaging resource, it scrutinises each aspect of Gilbert’s now famous ‘seven keys’ of motivation and provides a wide range of practical ideas, activities and launch-pads for discussion which can be blended seamlessly into your own lessons. Taking as its starting point the right of every child to an inspirational education that develops their values, attitudes and skills, this book provides you with the means to unlock even your most challenging of pupils and will act as a spring board for visionary learning in the classroom and beyond, Key ideas explored include: • Goal setting strategies • Students’ own intrinsic motivation • Preparing effective challenges • Developing multiple approaches to learning • Using physical activities to anchor learning • Helping students to understand themselves better and be better prepared for the world today For teachers of pupils at all ages and stages, this book is easy to follow, easy to ‘dip in and out of’, is conversational in tone, and has the potential to be a game-changer for any teacher wishing reinvigorate their pupils, colleagues and classrooms.

Motivation for Learning is a book for teachers--but not only for teachers: parents and administrators will also find it of value. Ultimately, too, it is a book for students--for their independence and growth and against their boredom in the classroom. Stanford C. Ericksen writes out of years of experience, both as a teacher and as director of the Center for Research on Learning and Teaching at the University of Michigan. In a practical fashion, he brings together the significant applications from research and theory about learning, motivation, personality, and group dynamics. The book says more about the conditions for learning than about the techniques of teaching: projecting one's voice to the back of the room is judged to be less important than is the instructor's ability to make sense to young adults and to challenge their curiosity. Throughout, the primary focus is on the stimulation and encouragement of the individual student's motivation to acquire new knowledge and new attitudes and values. Only a person of Ericksen's special experience could have written such a book. Equally important, only a person who likes and respects students as much as he does could have given the book its special quality of human warmth and understanding.