Nice article from a new teacher who is figuring out what works to motivate his kindergarten students - The Kindergarten Lesson from the Washington Post.

The author finds when he can build on internal motivation that is the best way, rather than rely on external motivation.

My personal experience as a substitute teacher, was I saw many teachers who were successful with external rewards. It does take a lot of work to manage these correctly, but they are a physical symbol of success that can be very helpful. Just as writing a child's name on the board with check marks for some ages can help. Other ages and schools, a stack of referrals is a good method :-) The best method depends on the culture of the class, which is always a challenge to figure out.

Labels: Schools