Reluctant Learners Research Articles

Playing the Believing Game with Dr. Seuss and Reluctant Learners in Science

We believe that Dr. Seuss’s Green Eggs and Ham can be an inspirational guidebook for teachers trying to reach reluctant learners. Green Eggs offers lessons to teachers and learners at every level—early childhood, K-12, and higher education. For the past decade, Perry has started his science education methods courses with a read aloud of Green Eggs. Perry’s students are pre-service teachers majoring in Early Childhood, Elementary, or Secondary Education. Each year about one hundred and fifty novice teachers experience the dialog and tension of Green Eggs. Perry urges them to look and listen as Sam persuades a reluctant stranger to try something new. After experiencing Green Eggs with a fresh perspective, these pre-service teachers report a new or renewed enthusiasm for trying to engage reluctant learners. They gain a deeper appreciation of the kind of teacher and teaching that can make a difference. Here’s how one student described it:

Engaging Reluctant Learners through the Web: Where do Teachers Start?

Engaging Reluctant Learners through the Web: Where do Teachers Start?

Instant Messaging for Creating Interactive and Collaborative m-Learning Environments

'Instant Messaging' (IM) and 'Presence,' which is essentially the ability of being able to detect if other users are logged in on the network and send them messages in real time, has become one of the most popular applications of the Internet, causing people to want to stay connected to the Internet for inordinate amounts of time, a phenomena that also fosters a sense of "online community," that perhaps no other application has done previously (Alvestrand, 2002). This research looks at the use of mobile devices to send instant messages that can carry much more information than the short message service (SMS) messages, but would be free to use, notwithstanding the price of getting online. We present a prototype IM system that can be used as a viable means of communicating and learning in higher education establishments. There is some evidence to show that learning using mobile devices reduces the formality of the learning experience, and helps engage reluctant learners and raise their self-confidence. In order for the learning process to be successful in online distance learning, unlike in the traditional face-to-face learning, attention must be paid to developing the participants' sense of community within their particular group. Instant messaging – or IM – is a natural medium for online community building and asynchronous/ synchronous peer discussions.

Inviting Reluctant Adolescent Readers Into the Literacy Club: Some Comprehension Strategies to Tutor Individuals or Small Groups of Reluctant Readers

Developing students' ability to read is a critical educational goal, necessary in order that students can become successful members of society. Proficiency in reading increases opportunities for higher education and promotes positive social change.Unfortunately, many students struggle with comprehension, especially in the content areas. Some have special learning needs, but others are simply reluctant learners. Direct systematic instruction in comprehension strategies and the use of enjoyable texts can encourage nonreaders to become part of our reading culture. This article describes strategies that Enhance motivation Develop prior knowledge Improve vocabulary acquisition Foster comprehension of both expository and narrative texts that students are likely to find in the content areas This article is also the source for a Class Acts podcast. Download “Supporting struggling adolescent readers” from www.reading.orgresourcespodcastsindex.html

‘I get bored when we don't have the opportunity to say our opinion’: learning about teaching from students

The idea of engaging students in discussions of teaching and learning has not had as much attention in Greece as in some other countries. As a new high school teacher confronting the problem of motivating reluctant learners I drew on the research I had undertaken on pupil voice for my M.Phil. The research was concerned with features of pedagogy that capture and sustain students' interest in history—a subject that is not always popular among young people. The analysis of data from interviews with 12 to 14 year old students from secondary schools in different parts of Greece highlighted three things: the importance of content that connected with students' everyday lives; opportunities in lessons for active involvement; and giving greater responsibility for learning to the students. This paper summarizes my research and indicates how the guidance of the students has helped me improve my own practice as a teacher.

What Do they Really Want?

Although much research exists on student motivation, few studies speak directly with students or highlight their voices. In this grounded theory study, we interviewed and observed reluctant learners in an alternative high school to learn what factors they saw as contributing to their school successes and failures. Themes emerging from the participants’ words were echoed by themes found in motivation research. Building relationships with teachers, being interested in school assignments, and feeling competent to perform tasks were mentioned by the students as influencing their levels of engagement. The qualitative data suggested ways for teachers to create motivating learning environments.

Points of View: PowerPoint in the Classroom

Points of View: PowerPoint in the Classroom

Redundant Masculinities? Employment Change and White Working Class Youth

List of Plates. List of Tables. Preface. 1. Introduction: Young, White, Male and Working Class. 2. The Rise of Poor Work: Employment Restructuring and Changing Class and Gender Identities. 3. The Contemporary Crisis Of Masculinity: It's Hard To Be(Come) A Man or The Problem of/for Boys. 4. Living on The Edge: Marginal Lives In Cambridge and Sheffield. 5. Leaving School: Pathways To Employment and Further Education. 6. Actively Seeking Employment: Committed Workers and Reluctant Learners. 7. Uncertain Transitions: Accidental and Incidental Workers, The Excluded and Escape Attempts. 8. Performing Identity: Protest and Domestic Masculinities. 9. Conclusions: What Is To Be Done About Boys?. Postscript. Appendix 1: Research Methodology. Appendix 2: The Participants. Notes. Bibliography. Index.

Are kids welcome in our schools?

It’s an editor’s privilege to scan the headlines and reflect on the news. Hopefully some readers will set me right if my conclusions are flawed. There have certainly been some strange headlines. Firstly, the assertion that schools are being ‘swamped’ by asylum seekers, followed by an insistence that these children should be separately educated. It’s a serious matter when senior politicians use such provocative language, in a climate of resurgent racism across Europe. But isn’t there also something back-to-fronr about this discourse? If schools are meant to meet the needs of the learners, then isn’t it schools that need to change, rather than telling children they shouldn’t be there. It is a privilege, therefore, in this issue of Iiiiplaviiig Schools, to feature one of the many schools which positively welcoiire asylum seekers, All Saints in Glasgowv. Ironically another news item was that parents of school refusers will be fined and even imprisoned. This move, condemned by the Child Poverty Action Group, begs a question -why do some children find school unpalatable? When I began teaching, we had the naive idea of encouraging reluctant learners by making school more interesting and enjoyable! Paradoxically, what both stories have in common is the issue of how well schools cater for the children of a rapidly changing and troubled world. Many heads have discovered that caring for their pupils’ material and emotional needs is the foundation for raising their achievements. Of course many children enjoy school; equally true, some children are more difficult to educate than others. There is a danger though that schools are increasingly becoming a pleasure-free zone under the pressure of efficiency and target-setting. Isn’t it time that the pressures of top-down command and control give way to a more enabling culture, in which school leaders are able to focus creative attention on their pupils’ social and learning needs? An article from Slough describes one creative response - a dramatic reduction in exclusions by negotiating alternative curricula based on the individual’s needs and interests. A research team from Canterbury provides extensive information on another - the wide range of ‘study support’ initiatives (homework clubs, enrichment opportunities, summer schools etc).

Why workers are reluctant learners: the case of the Canadian pulp and paper industry

Explores worker flexibility, through learning, union strategies, and resistance to learning. Issues of flexibility, learning, and quality are subject of much debate, negotiation, and conflict in the Canadian pulp and paper industry. A key bargaining issue for management has been to harness flexibility among the manual craft workers, to improve labour productivity. Within this context, workplace learning is not neutral or independent of day‐to‐day union‐management relations: it is a contested issue. Learning new skills is viewed as a threat to job control and security and presents a paradox: learning new trade skills enhances individual workers’ flexibility and employability but collectively weakens the union through job losses. Data were collected from pulp mills in British Columbia between 1996 and 1999. Survey and qualitative data provides evidence that workers’ resistance to learning is part of the contested arena of productivity and job control.

Reluctant learners: social work students and work with older people

Reflective learning requires active, motivated learners. Stimulating reflective learning when the student is uninterested in the subject is problematic. In the case of social work students an example of such disinterest is their negative attitude towards work with older people. Many studies have shown a hierarchy of students' client group preferences with children and families at the top and older and disabled people at the bottom. In Britain, older people are the major group of users of social services. There is a mismatch between users' (and agencies') needs and social work students' client group preferences. Reasons for students' disinterest in this area of work are considered, alongside more general barriers to learning. The use of a repertory grid technique with a group of first-year social work students undergoing professional training is discussed, with the aim of assisting students to articulate their views about work with older people. Such techniques can enhance reflective learning in other contexts, and engage reluctant learners.

Becoming a Secondary Teacher in France: A trainee perspective on recent developments in initial teacher training

The paper begins by outlining recent reforms of initial teacher training in France, changes aimed at moving French teacher training away from its traditional focus on subject knowledge and pedagogic theory towards a stronger emphasis on classroom practice issues such as teaching and learning strategies and motivating reluctant learners. It goes on to examine the perceptions of some French trainee teachers; for example, how well prepared they felt for the challenges ahead and their training and support whilst on placement. Their responses reveal concern about the appropriateness and variability of some of their training, particularly school-based elements and mentor support. The responses also raise some interesting comparisons with experience in the UK and other European countries, all of whom are debating matters such as teacher accountability, societal expectations of the education system and how teachers should be trained. These comparative issues will be the focus for further research.

Making connections: football, the internet and reluctant language learners

This article describes a project carried out by PGCE students in an urban school. The project explored the potential of the World Cup and the internet for motivating reluctant language learners. By building on pupils' interests, it was hoped that they would ‘connect’ more with language learning. Reflections on the project offer insights into ways of encouraging greater motivation.

In my View: Motivating Reluctant Learners

In my View: Motivating Reluctant Learners

Watch Your Language: Teaching Standard Usage to Resistant and Reluctant Learners

“Watch Your Language: Teaching Standard Usage to Resistant and Reluctant Learners” by Mark Larson talks about the real issues in trying to teach Standard American English to resistant and reluctant learners and suggests ways to gently tackle the “hurdles” of this task.

Watch Your Language: Teaching Standard Usage to Resistant and Reluctant Learners

When I was in high school, my language skills (or lack thereof) landed me in a remedial English class called Hurdles. I don't know what the curriculum planners were thinking when they gave the program that name, but the designation has cemented in my mind an enduring metaphor for the way I have viewed the relationship between grammar and writing ever since. Though I am now an English teacher in that same school and a published writer, I continue to be adversely affected by Hurdles English and other classes like it. As I write or talk, I still see myself proceeding from a starting block: the first sentence of my communication-to the finish line: the last sentence. Along the way, there are hurdles-arbitrarily placed, fabricated obstacles-which, depending upon my grammatical prowess, I will either clear or trip over. In Hurdles, I completed a blizzard of worksheets and memorized a lot of rules, most of which are now lost to time, but I did not learn much about language. I learned even less about writing, except that it is as easy as crossing a mine field. When I walked into my first classroom as a teacher ten years ago, I started out teaching in the manner by which I had been taught. The students in my culturally diverse English class worked from a yellow grammar skills book, suspiciously similar to the one I had used sixteen years earlier. I circled every error in their writing and made students complete Correction Sheets-a listing of their errors. I was attempting to straighten my students' grammar the same way my orthodontist had straightened my teeth: by force. Later, when I was assigned a course load that included both freshmen and seniors, I discovered that most of the seniors remembered little or nothing of what I knew they had been taught in their first, second, and third years. That's when I began to ask questions, but not about the failings of the students. I started with the basics.

The Greenhouse Effect: A Work Experience Course for Reluctant Learners

For years, the students in the Cooperative Work Experience class had a common credo, neatly summarized in the minimalist slogan less is more. School was a place to plan the weekend and to endure the stupid requirements of stupid teachers. The school administration was at the top of their stupid list; clearly it did not endorse a humanitarian interpretation of the school rules, especially those concerning leaving campus early, smoking in the bathrooms, and cutting class to deal with the demands of unrequited love. But these students always understood the need for a job. Without a job you didn't have money for a car, clothes, or for partying on the weekend. Many had more than one job and didn't get home until 11 P.M. Because school began at 7:30 A.M., they came to school tired; homework was out of the question. In the past, the work experience course helped students find and hold jobs, taught them something about interviewing and resumes, and required them to take weekly quizzes based on large, hard-covered textbooks.

Earn Your Fortune

Earn Your Fortune

Motivating Reluctant Learners: Innovative Contingency Packages

Motivating Reluctant Learners: Innovative Contingency Packages

“Delicious” Incentives: A Technique to Motivate Reluctant Learners

“Delicious” Incentives: A Technique to Motivate Reluctant Learners