Understanding and Engaging Adolescents

A proven-to-work tool kit for motivating adolescent learners!

Motivating adolescents can be challenging task for any middle and high school teacher. With artful humor, this engaging and reader-friendly guidebook provides educators with an in-depth look at the ways that adolescents learn and offers activities that educators can use to inspire greater student interest and participation.

Drawing on their backgrounds in social and behavioral psychology, the authors encourage you to create a vision statement for what you want to accomplish and provide the right tools to help you succeed. The book shows how to modify your instructional program by using

Three components of motivation

Specific classroom management strategies

Proven, brain-compatible activities for individuals and groups that boost students' academic, research, metacognitive, and social skills

Steps to bolster learners' study skills

Technology to effectively bridge the gap between how students learn and how instructors present information

Insightful and appealing, this practical resource is the key to effectively meeting the learning needs of your students and helping ensure that every learner experiences success.

Inspire adolescents' participation and boost their academic, research, metacognitive, and social skills through proven motivators, brain-compatible activities, study skills strategies, and the effective use of technology.

VOYA

Drawing from a variety of disciplines as well as their own educations and experiences, Miller and Desberg offer ideas for navigating the complicated and often frustrating issue of motivating adolescent students. The authors explore theories of motivation, classroom management, and learning before offering activities that reflect those theories and actions dedicated to teaching study skills and getting adolescents to understand themselves. They also offer ideas for effectively integrating popular culture and technology into the classroom. Charts, links, examples, and detailed guidelines for the implementation of activities round out this important resource. Peppered with anecdotes and one-liners, the lighthearted approach deals with an often emotionally charged topic. The authors' self-effacing humor works well here, both to demonstrate one of their key principles (humanizing the teacher) and to reflect some of their own real experiences that led them to the conclusions they make. But Miller and Desberg write without resorting to platitudes or easy fixes. Instead they ask readers to rethink the nature of power, emotion, and motivation as it applies to both the teacher and the student. What results is a thoughtful collection of ideas that would be meaningful to new teacher and veteran teacher alike. Reviewer: Jennifer Miskec

Peter Desberg is a professor of graduate education and coordinator of the Technology Based Education MA Program at California State University, Dominguez Hills. He is also a licensed clinical psychologist. Desberg is the author of 20 books and is a frequent presenter and keynote speaker at national conventions. He was the host of "Introduction to Computers" on the Los Angeles Unified School District's cable channel for ten years and has appeared on many television shows and been written up in many newspapers and magazines, including Psychology Today, The Wall Street Journal, Cosmopolitan and Reader's Digest.