Finding the Spark: How to Break the Cycle of Learned Helplessness and Re-engage the Unmotivated Student

On 4 December 2015, Jim Wright presented an invited workshop, Finding the Spark: How to Break the Cycle of Learned Helplessness and Re-engage the Unmotivated Student, at the Eastern Suffolk BOCES in Holbrook, NY. Here are resources shared at the workshop:

• PPT: Finding the Spark: How to Break the Cycle of Learned Helplessness and Re-engage the Unmotivated Student
• Handout

• Identifying the Big Ideas That Guide Effective Behavior Management

• Counteracting ‘Learned Helplessness’: 10 Quick Classroom Strategies

Useful Free Online Apps to Create Student Academic-Process Materials:

• Self-Check Behavior Checklist Maker: Create customized behavior checklists for teacher use and student self-monitoring.
• Behavior Report Card Maker: Make customized behavior rating scales to rate student behaviors and have students monitor their own learning.
• Academic Survival Skills Checklist Maker. Use this app to create checklists of academic survival skills ('academic enablers').

Strategies for Student Academic Self-Management

• Read-Ask-Paraphrase. The student locates main idea and supporting details for each paragraph and summarizes them on a graphic organizer. RAP Interactive Form
• Ask-Read-Tell. The student creates a reading plan and sets reading goals, monitors understanding while reading, and reflects on the reading once finished. ART Interactive Form.

• Learning Contracts 
• Version 1: Interactive Learning Contract|Example of a Completed Learning Contract
• Version 2: Interactive Learning Contract|Example of a Completed Learning Contract

• Student Self-Regulation: Work-Planning Conference: Description
• Student Independent Work: Planning Tool: Interactive Form

• Academic Survival Skills. The student possesses strong work habits in global skills such as time management, study skills, and organization.