Motivating the unmotivated learner . . .

As we start a new year, this is a timely post by Larry Felazzo on ways to motivate the unmotivated learner.  He shares responses to the question from Daniel Pink and Dan Ariely, two researchers and authors doing work in this field.  There are no silver bullets, but there are some strategies and insights that are good to keep in mind because these students are in most classrooms.

Pink focuses on the importance of why and bringing relevance to the learning for the student, something that we are focused on with our key content goal.  Ariely talks about the "Ikea Effect" - people valuing something more because of the labor they invested into creating it.  There is a short video by Ariely where he shares some of what he has found to be helpful in his research with examples for teachers.