Welcome to my blog and thank you for reading! 

Entitled "Open Book: Sharing Conversations on Excellence in Education", I’ll be posting regularly on topics and exclusive articles related to rigor, student motivation, teacher tips, engagement, and leadership. Each blog series will "open the discussion" on the important AND relevant topics of conversation affecting educators and our goals of acheiveing student growth.

Each blog series includes support reading materials, tips and strategy takeaways, and simple ideas that can be implemented in your school and/or classroom the very next day.

I’ll also be answering questions I receive from teachers and leaders and "opening the conversation" between us regarding teaching and learning.  

You can contact me with questions here on the website - just click the contact button and let me know what you would like to discuss. I look forward to the conversation and exchanging thoughts and ideas on how to improve student learning.    

                                                - Dr. Barbara Blackburn

Have you ever said this about a student? I know I did when I was teaching— usually when nothing I did worked with a particular student. But this is never true; we are all motivated by something. When you say this, chances

that you really mean that your student is not motivated by what you want or expect.

Let me explain using two examples. Philip is the class clown who never misses an opportunity to crack a joke. He doesn’t do his homework, and any time you ask him to respond in class, he turns it into an opportunity to perform a comedy routine. From your perspective, he is just a cutup who draws other students away from learning. You have tried to deal with this in a couple

of ways, including referring him to the office for misbehavior. You noticed, however, that the next day at lunch, he was entertaining his classmates with the story of his visit to the office. Finally, out of desperation, you have

decided not to call on Philip anymore, to limit his opportunities to act up in class.

PART ONE: ON YOUR WORST DAY - YOU ARE SOMEONE'S BEST HOPE

Imagine an instance when you were 100% excited about making a difference for kids, the moment you were most enthusiastic about being a teacher.

It might be right now, or it may have been a while since you felt that way. Remember the time you totally believed you would change your students’lives? 

Take a sheet of paper and cut out a heart (yes, red paper would be nice).

That was your heart for teaching at that moment. And now, I want you to

think about what has happened since then:

You read the fiftieth news story about how overpaid teachers are.

(Go ahead, rip off a piece of the heart and throw it on the floor. That’s how it felt, right?)

You poured your heart and soul into the student everyone said was a lost cause, only to have the parents come to school and berate you for not doing enough. (Rip off another piece.)

A teacher told you it was nice that you had all these ideas about helping kids but that it’s really all about the test scores. (Rrrrrrrrip!)

Extra duties and paperwork seem to fill all the extra times. (Rip!)

You were told that you can’t take the kids on a field trip because it wasn’t “instructional.” (Rip.)

Some days and weeks you are just so tired that you can’t move because you are working harder than you ever knew you could,

and you just aren’t seeing that you are making a difference. (Rip.)

Fill in the blank with your own experience (Rip.)

PART ONE: WHAT IMPACTS MOTIVATION FOR TEACHERS?

Do you have faculty or staff who are not motivated?

The truth is, all adults are motivated, just not necessarily by their work.  So let me rephrase my question.  

Do you work with adults who are not motivated?  

Of course you do.  And you also work with many who are very motivated.  Many things impact motivation, especially low motivation.  These can be placed into three categories:  personal factors, work influences, and outside issues..

WHAT DOES RIGOROUS WORK LOOK LIKE ARTS OR TECHNOLOGY CLASSROOM?

In this blog series dicussing rigor and specifc activities by subject for the classroom - we have looked at the maths, science, social studies, and language arts classrooms.

Today, in the final blog in this series we are going to look at practical and easy to implement activities for the arts and technology classrooms.