Quit Point: Understanding Apathy, Engagement, and Motivation in the Classroom

by Adam Chamberlin, Svetoslav Matejic

You have questions about why students quit

The concept of Quit Point reveals the answers to your complex questions and provides keys to engaging learners.

Educators are leaving the profession in record numbers. Students are falling through the cracks and many are giving up on learning. But what exactly is the problem? And more important, what should we do about it?

In Quit Understanding Apathy, Engagement, and Motivation in the Classroom, authors Chamberlin and Matejic present a new way of approaching those issues, including emphasizing things like ungrading, motivating students, and more about reluctant learners. The Quit Point--their theory why students stop working and how to identify quitting before it happens--will transform how teachers reach the potential of each and every student.

Quit Point

How to confront apathy and build student engagementHow to differentiate learning for all levels,The best way to plan and assess learning to discourage quittingInterventions to challenge students to keep goingHow to experience a happier, more fulfilling, teaching experienceApplications and toolkits to help you address Quit Point, starting tomorrowRead Quit Point today and stop quitting before it starts tomorrow.

Genres: Education, Nonfiction, Teaching

187 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 19, 2018

Reviews

[Reed Fagan]

I guess I hit my "quit point" with this book 🤣 . No, I actually think the book is written well-enough and it seemed the research involved was pretty fair (been a long time since I last cracked its spine), but it's hard to maintain reading these annual summer books into a busy school year, especially when the books are not followed up on by the admin team or staff. 🤷‍♂️

As best I recall, the thesis seems to be that each student has their own factors having nothing to do with school or your classroom that bear on their ability and desire to persist with stretching academic work, and the key for the teacher is to identify those factors and where that student's quit points might be, and somehow coax them beyond those quit points to get intellectually growing.

[Tonya Fletcher · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a veteran educator, I have been looking for a book like this for a long time. I've seen kids turn in work that was not complete. I've seen kids miss passing an important test by just a point. I knew they were capable of passing, but how else could I help them? I needed to understand that they had reached their quit point. Learning about quit point was truly an aha moment. This book has given me useful information for how to recognize quit point, how to discourage quitting, and how to engage and motivate students and staff. I look forward to sharing this book (and the charts and strategies) with my administrators and colleagues.

[Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quit Point, by Adam Chamberlin and Svetoslav Matejic, explains what a quit point is and gives some practical ways to deal with the quit point of classroom students. I do feel that it was worth my time and effort to read. As teachers, we all see quit points happening in our classrooms. This book helps us to understand why quit points happen and what are some preventative measures we can use to avoid students quitting or rationing their efforts in our classrooms. Some ideas seem idealistic and other ideas require much front loading work from the teacher. There are however, some ideas that take small adjustments in teaching style and attitude.

[Colleenish · Rating 2 out of 5]

Motivation is a vital topic in teaching. This book was either too basic(bloom's taxonomy, differentiate) or not concrete enough (what do those lesson plans look like? Where does the funding come from? When doesn't this work?)

Not great.

[Beth Hawks · Rating 1 out of 5]

If you believe that kids can only be motivated if you let them do whatever they want and don't grade them, then this is the book for you. After 25 years of holding kids to high standards, I do not believe these things, so about half way though this book, I started skimming the remaining chapters.