Description
Book SynopsisChanging Attitudes and Behavior: Practice Makes Permanent, the second of the Practice Makes Permanent series, argues that school performance is directly correlated to student motivation. If school administrators and teachers adopt Jensen’s easy, direct, and effective ways to help students manage their feelings and focus their attention, the results will be two-fold: schools will foster a cooperative and high-performing learning community, and students will succeed academically while also mastering important social skills. To do so, both schools and students must make permanent learning their first priority—rather than temporary, superficial knowledge—so that students can take pride in- and ownership of their achievements in the classroom. Maintaining this standard will require educators to build learning activities systematically: they must understand, record, organize, and deepen knowledge. It will also require that they know simple and direct ways to change and improve the thinking that drives students’ behavior, in addition to the points of leverage available to teachers when redirecting even the most distracted or distracting students. Although identifying and modifying behavior patterns can be difficult, Jensen provides tried methods that will address student motivation, unify class instruction, and get teachers and students back on track for their long-term, permanent learning goals. For more information about the author's work, please check out his educational blog here: http://johnjensen.edublogs.org/
Trade ReviewIn this three-book series, John Jensen provides educators with strategies for helping students to "master learning with great pleasure.” This goal is a truly worthy one since students’ experiencing mastery and pleasure is the exception in America’s schools and school systems. Jensen’s philosophy for transforming children’s educational experiences is powerful and his aim to help teachers help their students to achieve remarkable learning outcomes provides readers with a compelling view of what teaching and learning can be. -- Francis M. Duffy
John Jensen has penned a volume that offers a practical path to serving students better. With an admirable focus on the value of practice and the virtue of disciplined effort, he offers advice that educators and parents would do well to heed. -- Frederick M. Hess, director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute
John Jensen has penned a volume that offers a practical path to serving students better. With an admirable focus on the value of practice and the virtue of disciplined effort, he offers advice that educators and parents would do well to heed. -- Trevor R. Waagner, educational consultant for Education, Agriculture and Technology (EAT), a think tank in Chicago, Illinois
This is the second volume in Jensen's ‘Practice Makes Permanent’ sequence (the first volume: Teaching Students to Work Harder and Enjoy It, 2012). In this volume, Jensen (psychologist and educational consultant) highlights basic strategies designed to facilitate an optimum learning experience for students at all levels in the school system, from kindergarten to college. He specifies general, commonsense guiding principles. The narrative, which is somewhat didactic in tone, identifies salient elements that impede the ability of students to incorporate novel ideas or new material into their expanding repertoire. The key points stated within each chapter are summarized for the reader to reinforce an understanding of the relevant teaching strategies necessary for productive and positive change. This is a good resource for psychologists, educators, and policy makers within the education field. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through professionals. * CHOICE *
Table of ContentsPreface Chapter 1. Pursue Continuous Conscious Mastery - A goal that unifies methods Chapter 2. Sequence Learning Activities Optimally – Arrange a reliable learning system Chapter 3. Arrange for Good feelings - Why bring balance to students’ feelings Chapter 4. Practice Good Feelings - Methods for generating good feelings Chapter 5. Practice with the Imagination - Drawing most benefit from imagination Chapter 6. Practice Sustaining Attention - Hold students’ attention steadily Chapter 7. Draw on Social Roots - Students cue each other’s learning Chapter 8. Alter Thinking To Gain Order - Change behavior by changing thinking Chapter 9. Turn Around a Dysfunctional Class - Bring multiple influences to bear Chapter 10. Hone Your Viewpoint - Key zones for teacher intent Chapter 11. Know What You Are Doing - Grasp the difficulties of change Chapter 12. Hold Out for the Plus Element - Even good education is not enough References
