Motivating Students

Educators- do you know how to encourage students to be more active in class? To be better prepared to learn? And how do you deal with apathetic students, or ones that are just plain uninterested in the subject matter? Today, we're talking about how to get students motivated to learn with Education consultant Rick Wormelli, education writer ReLeah Cossett Lent, and middle school head Barry Gilmore . Ms. Cossett-Lent and Mr. Gilmore co-wrote the book Common Core CPR: What About the Adolescents Who Struggle...Or Just Don't Care? .

Episode Segments:

Educviii: Education Consultant Rick Wormelli Our first guest, Rick Wormelli, will focus on young adolescents. He'll share his expertise at motivating middle school students, and helping their teachers thrive.
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Educviii: ReLeah Cossett Lent and Barry Gilmore Ms. Cossett-Lent and Mr. Gilmore are co-authors of the book Common Core CPR: What About the Adolescents Who Struggle...Or Just Don't Care? Barry Gilmore has been teaching and writing for more than fifteen years; he is currently Middle School Head at Hutchison School in Memphis, Tennessee and a consultant with the Tennessee Governor's School for International Studies. An international consultant, ReLeah Cossett Lent was a secondary teacher before becoming a founding member of a statewide literacy project at the University of Central Florida.
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Guest(s) Appearing on this Episode

Rick Wormelli One of the first Nationally Board Certified teachers in America, Rick brings innovation, energy, validity and high standards to both his presentations, and his instructional practice, which includes 34 years teaching math, science, English, physical education, health, and history and coaching teachers and principals. Rick’s work has been reported in numerous media, including ABC’s “Good Morning America,” “Hardball with Chris Matthews,” National Geographic and Good Housekeeping magazines, What Matters Most: Teaching for the 21st Century, and the Washington Post. He is a columnist for AMLE Magazine, and a frequent contributor to ASCD’s Education Leadership magazine. He is the author of the award-winning book, Meet Me in the Middle, as well as the best-selling books, Day One and Beyond, Fair Isn’t Always Equal: Assessment and Grading in the Differentiated Classroom, Differentiation: From Planning to Practice, Metaphors & Analogies: Power Tools for Teaching any Subject, all five from Stenhouse Publishers, as well as Summarization in any Subject, published by ASCD. His new book, The Collected Writings (So Far) of Rick Wormeli: Crazy Good Stuff I Learned about Teaching Along the Way was released in 2013. His classroom practice is a showcase for ASCD’s best-selling series, “At Work in the Differentiated Classroom.” With his substantive presentations, sense of humor, and unconventional approaches, he’s been asked to present to teachers and administrators in all 50 states, Canada, China, Europe, Thailand, Japan, Vietnam, Korea, Australia, the Middle East, and at the White House. He is a seasoned veteran of many international Web casts, and he is Disney’s American Teacher Awards 1996 Outstanding English Teacher of the Nation. He won the 2008 James P. Garvin award from the New England League of Middle Schools for Teaching Excellence, Service, and Leadership, and he has been a consultant for National Public Radio, USA Today, Court TV, and the Smithsonian Institution’s Natural Partners Program and their search for the Giant Squid. In June 2012, Rick was the graduation commencement speaker for the highest performing, public high school in the Washington, D.C. area. He lives in Herndon, Virginia with his wife and two children, who are both now in college. He is currently working on his first young adult fiction novel and a new book on homework practices in the 21st century. Rick's Website

Barry Gilmore Barry Gilmore is the Middle School Head at Hutchison School in Memphis, Tennessee. A former English and social studies teacher with nearly twenty years in the classroom, Gilmore is a National Board Certified educator and past-president of the Tennessee Council of Teachers of English. He is also the author of seven books for teachers and students, includingPlagiarism: Why it Happens and How to Prevent It and a companion volume for use with students. His most recent book wasCommon Core CPR (Corwin Press, 2013). Gilmore’s teaching awards include the National Council of Teachers of English High School teacher of Excellence Award, the Tennessee Holocaust Commission’s Teacher of the Year Award, and the Tennessee Council of Teachers of English Teacher of the Year Award. In 2005 he was named an American Star of Teaching by the U.S. Department of Education. Dr. Gilmore regularly works with teachers around the nation. Common Core CPR

ReLeah Cossett Lent Now an international consultant, ReLeah Cossett Lent was a public school educator before becoming a founding member of a literacy initiative at the University of Central Florida. While there, she created protocols for and implemented professional leadership teams in schools and districts across Florida. Her work led to the publication of Literacy Learning Communities: A Guide for Creating Sustainable Change in Secondary Schools and is unique in that she combines deep literacy learning with embedded PLCs, leading to sustainable change in schools. Since then, ReLeah has authored eight more books on education and has been published in numerous journals, including Educational Leadership, the Journal of Staff Development, and NCTE’s English Journal as well as being a frequent speaker for these organizations. Her latest titles include Common Core CPR: What about the Adolescents Who Struggle. . .or Just Don’t Care? (Corwin, 2013) and Overcoming Textbook Fatigue (ASCD, 2012). Additionally, her work with Jimmy Santiago Baca, award-winning poet and writer, led to a book and CD for reaching at-risk students, titled Adolescents on the Edge: Stories and Lessons to Transform Learning (2010). She and Baca conduct writing workshops in schools and communities internationally. As chair of NCTE’s Standing Committee against Censorship, ReLeah has worked to create national anti-censorship policies, and her book on censorship, Keep Them Reading: An Anti-Censorship Guide for Educators, is influencing district policies around the country. ReLeah is the recipient of both NCTE and ALA’s Intellectual Freedom Award, in addition to be honored at a gala in New York City with the PEN/Newman’s Own First Amendment Award in 1999. In 2013 she received state education awards from Wisconsin and Florida. ReLeah now lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of northern Georgia with her husband, Bert, and two happy dogs, Cassanova and Sierra. ReLeah 's Website