Changing Attitudes: A Strategy for Motivating Students to Learn

by Vincent Ruggiero

It's easy to identify students with negative attitudes toward school, schoolwork and teachers. They're usually bored, disruptive, rebellious, argumentative, withdrawn, inattentive, frequently tardy or frequently absent. Or all of the above! But now-at last-help is available for teachers who care enough to affect a change. Changing Attitudes is the first and only teacher's handbook to address the growing problem of negative attitudes. By using "informal" logic-a.k.a. critical thinking-teachers can now correct negative attitudes and thereby motivate students to learn. The book lays out a three-step 1. Identify negative attitudes; 2. Show students how to express those attitudes as ideas; 3. Help students analyze the ideas and reach their own conclusions as to their validity. Packed with contemporary examples, the book helps teachers and their students understand and use informal logic to critically examine negative attitudes. Techniques for identifying and classifying the most harmful attitudes, to expose the fallacious thinking underlying them are also included. All teachers. A Longwood Professional Book .

125 pages, Paperback

First published February 18, 1998