How kids feel about school affects how they learn. Research shows that motivation (pdf) and mindset matter hugely when it comes to kids’ performance on tests—an admittedly narrow measure of learning, but one that is quantifiable.
How kids feel about school affects how they learn. Research shows that motivation (pdf) and mindset matter hugely when it comes to kids’ performance on tests—an admittedly narrow measure of learning, but one that is quantifiable.
So it should be alarming that way too many kids lose interest in school as they get older. One Gallup poll asked 5th- and 11th-grade students in 3,000 schools whether they agreed with the following statements:
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The results showed that compared to perky fifth graders, high-school juniors were pretty unengaged.
How can we increase student engagement, particularly in teenage years? The academic journal Nature recently examined the adolescent brain, and one article offered ideas: adolescent classes should have more experiential learning—that is, field trips and hands-on activities, as opposed to listening to a teacher lecture. And since teens are primed for social affirmation, they would benefit from more peer work and well-structured collaboration.
