Ch. 2 Motivating Young Adolescents

Ch. 2: Meet Me in the Middle
Motivating Young Adolescents

Wormeli explains that getting young adolescents to pay attention in class and learn is 80% of our battle in middle school, whereas the other 20% is just pedagogy (the content material). Sometimes the best way(s) to know if a student is getting anything from the material is to place yourself in the students’ shoes by doing the task yourself. What would you change? How would you change it? Did you feel motivated as the student? Motivation comes in numerous variations across the board. I am motivated first if the material is of interest to me and secondly if I feel comfortable in the classroom. This comfort-level is not just by how the seats feel, the lighting/ heat in the room, yet by respect level and notion of freedom of speech. Will my answers by discarded or ridiculed? Is there favoritism? We need to make classrooms a neutral ground where everyone can learn together, yet at their own pace and level. We can reach a certain level a motivation by using several of the techniques explained in this chapter. I feel the main source of motivation is having enthusiasm for the subject at hand. One can do this by building suspense, telling stories, offering vivid lessons, using games, giving feedback and catering to the multiple intelligences by using a boom box and letting students use their bodies. Many of Wormeli’s ideas were those of which we explored and testing in practicum to make a classroom that meets the needs of ALL of our students.