persist in the face of difficulty and keep at it until they have achieved their goals (Guthrie, 2012; Dwek, 2008). Likewise, lower achievers read less, and the less engaged decline in achievement. The spiral goes downward as well as upward. In fact, continued low engagement in reading is often a precursor to dropping out of school (Guthrie, 2008). In general, helping all students succeed is not a mystery; we know the teaching elements that motivate and inspire (Muir, 2014):
• Building positive relationships and an inviting school climate • Providing specific feedback that helps students succeed • Inviting student hands-on, active work • Honoring different learning styles • Developing projects that stem from students’ interests • Avoiding bribes and rewards • Honoring student voice and choice • Connecting learning to problem solving and inventive thinking • Fostering real-world connections Do Rewards Work?
Paul Tough (2016) tells the story of Roland Fryer, a Harvard economics professor who has given out an astonishing sum of cash trying to encourage parents and their children to care about school and their schoolwork. Alas, all that money has made nearly zero difference and in one case, it even seems to have interfered. Tough explains: From 2007 to 2009, Fryer distributed a total of $9.4 million in cash incentives to 27,000 students, to promote book reading in Dallas, to raise test scores in New York, and to improve course grades in Chicago—all with no effect. “The impact of financial incentives on student achievement,” Fryer reported, “is statistically 0 in each city.” In the 2010–11 school year, he gave cash incentives to fifth-grade students in 25 low-performing public schools in Houston, and to their parents and teachers, with the intent of increasing the time they spent on math homework and improving their scores on standardized math tests. The students performed the tasks necessary to get paid, but their average math scores at the end of eight months hadn’t changed at all. When Fryer looked at their reading scores, he found that they actually went down.
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ENGAGEMENT AND MOTIVATION
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