What Underachieving Middle School Students Believe Motivates them to Learn

Chapter 1: The Challenge to Educate Everyone Chapter 2: A Review of Literature Chapter 3: Methods Chapter 4: The Results Chapter 5: Discussion      An Emerging Theory      A Gap in Schools        Enough Teachers?        Not Far Enough        Missing Motivators        Risks      Getting in the Way?      A Final Thought References Appendixes Biography

Not Enough Teachers Trying To Motivate It was clear from talking with the participants that some of their teachers had created respectful relationships, made sure that their teaching was activity based, and gave students choices. It was also clear that other teachers did not. The students in the pilot reported the same phenomenon. All the students requested more activity-based teaching. Students reported that, for the most part, they weren’t given choices in their learning. According to the students, many of their teachers were too serious or grumpy, and the Aspirations data show that 35% of seventh graders didn’t think teachers showed respect to students, 42% didn’t have an adult role model, and 51% didn’t think teachers valued their opinions or cared about their feelings.

	Web site created by Mike Muir Send questions or comments to wilder@somtel.com Last updated April 25, 2001	Mike Muir Assistant Professor of Education University of Maine at Farmington 104 Main Street Farmington, ME 04938 207.778.7179 wilder@somtel.com http://violet.umf.maine.edu/~mmuir