Students don't care how much you know until they know how much you care

One of the most difficult tasks teachers face is that of consistently creating an active, joyful, and educationally productive learning environment. Teachers have always faced competition for their students’ attention. Everything from peer pressure and family conflicts to neighborhood dynamics can cause students to lose focus on the lesson at hand. Today’s technology-savvy students, however, pose even greater challenges for their teachers. Raised in the age of computerized electronic technology, with its instant access to information and rapid-fire verbal and visual feedback, these students often find their schoolwork, with its requisite slower-paced, review-oriented presentations, tedious and boring. You need a strategy that compels nonparticipants to focus and participate. Instead of spending hours meticulously grading test papers only to have your students give them a cursory glance, crumple them into a ball, and throw them in the trash, you need a technique that encourages them to focus on and learn from their mistakes...                                    The Power of Positive Teaching