Student Motivation
Pivotal provide cutting edge training tailored to your institution. Sample agendas are available on request. We don't 'train and run', we build sustainable practice that works for the long term. All our training can be booked with coaching & mentoring.
How do you motivate students to engage in their own learning and in your lessons?
Which strategies work for the long term even with the most challenging groups?
How can you refine your teaching performance and leave your students motivated to self study?
Pivotal’s Motivation INSET is packed with practical ideas. Translating theory effortlessly to practice the training leaves colleagues motivated to try out new ideas.
You can have motivated students who are fully engaged in their learning.
Paul Dix says: 
The most reluctant students often need the most sustained positive reinforcement. This should not, however, be a reason for over loading them with material rewards or great outdoor pursuit trips as soon as they choose to comply. Unusually high levels of praise and reward must be a temporary measure to engage their attention and lead students into a pattern of appropriate behaviour. High levels of praise and reward cannot be sustained and set up unrealistic expectations. 
Paul's Tombola Theory
Why do we love a tombola? The prizes are mostly useless and often undesirable yet we love a tombola. Is it the attraction the spinning box, the lightly sellotaped raffle tickets or the lone tin of pineapple rings? Perhaps is it the ‘delving’, the dipping, the anticipation of winning. It is surprising what motivates human beings. We will part with our hard earned simply for the opportunity to draw out a ticket.
In the classroom I have been extending the tombola theory and experimenting with sparkly boxes. Instead of presenting students with the work that they need to complete I have been chunking it up, placing different tasks into different boxes and inviting students to draw them out. The boxes have different levels ‘easy’, ‘medium’ and ‘hard’ and these levels of difficulty are rewarded with appropriate reward. Instead of battling with Trevor to focus on his work the mood and motivation has changed. Now the desire to delve is playing havoc with his desire to disrupt. The boxes motivate and focus the learning. They reveal the mysteries of the lesson, appear to give the child power over what is being studied and are thoroughly satisfying and sparkly.
Our Motivation training may include:
- Surface to deep: Engaging students and leading them to deeper learning
- Meaningful reinforcement and its impact on reluctant learners
- The impact of teacher expectations on motivation
- Good practice: Models of motivation
- Fine tuning practical strategies for your students