Over the course of any sustained project or systematic practice, there are many sources of interest and engagement that compete for attention and effort. For some learners, they need support to remember the initial goal or to maintain a consistent vision of the rewards of reaching that goal. For those learners, it is important to build in periodic or persistent “reminders” of both the goal and its value in order for them to sustain effort and concentration in the face of distracters.

• Prompt or require learners to explicitly formulate or restate goal
• Display the goal in multiple ways
• Encourage division of long-term goals into short-term objectives
• Demonstrate the use of hand-held or computer-based scheduling tools
• Use prompts or scaffolds for visualizing desired outcome
• Engage learners in assessment discussions of what constitutes excellence and generate relevant examples that connect to their cultural background and interests

Once a goal is set, effective learners and problem-solvers plan a strategy, including the tools they will use, for reaching that goal. For young children in any domain, older learners in a new domain, or any learner with one of the disabilities that compromise executive functions (e.g., intellectual disabilities), the strategic planning step is often omitted, and trial and error attempts take its place. To help learners become more plan-full and strategic a variety of options are needed, such as cognitive “speed bumps” that prompt them to “stop and think;” graduated scaffolds that help them actually implement strategies; or engagement in decision-making with competent mentors.

• Embed prompts to “stop and think” before acting as well as adequate space
• Embed prompts to “show and explain your work” (e.g., portfolio review, art critiques)
• Provide checklists and project planning templates for understanding the problem, setting up prioritization, sequences, and schedules of steps
• Embed coaches or mentors that model think-alouds of the process
• Provide guides for breaking long-term goals into reachable short-term objectives

Learning cannot happen without feedback, and that means learners need a clear picture of the progress that are (or are not) making. When assessments and feedback do not inform instruction or when they are not given to the students in a timely manner, learning cannot change because students do not know what to do differently. This lack of knowledge about what to improve can make some learners seem “perseverative,” careless, or unmotivated. For these learners all of the time, and for most learners some of the time, it is important to ensure that options can be customized to provide feedback that is more explicit, timely, informative, and accessible. Especially important is providing “formative” feedback that allows learners to monitor their own progress effectively and to use that information to guide their own effort and practice.

• Ask questions to guide self-monitoring and reflection
• Show representations of progress (e.g., before and after photos, graphs and charts showing progress over time, process portfolios)
• Prompt learners to identify the type of feedback or advice that they are seeking
• Use templates that guide self-reflection on quality and completeness
• Provide differentiated models of self-assessment strategies (e.g., role-playing, video reviews, peer feedback)
• Use of assessment checklists, scoring rubrics, and multiple examples of annotated student work/performance examples

Learners vary not only in their skills and abilities, but also in the kinds of challenges that motivate them to do their best work. All learners need to be challenged, but not always in the same way. In addition to providing appropriately varied levels and types of demands, learners also need to be provided with the right kinds of resources necessary for successful completion of the task. Learners cannot meet a demand without appropriate, and flexible, resources. Providing a range of demands, and a range of possible resources, allows all learners to find challenges that are optimally motivating. Balancing the resources available to meet the challenge is vital.

• Differentiate the degree of difficulty or complexity within which core activities can be completed
• Provide alternatives in the permissible tools and scaffolds
• Vary the degrees of freedom for acceptable performance
• Emphasize process, effort, improvement in meeting standards as alternatives to external evaluation and competition