The SecEd Podcast: Curiosity and motivation in the classroom

In this episode, three experienced teachers discuss ideas, tips and advice for fostering student curiosity and motivation in the secondary school classroom.

We ask what curiosity and motivation look like in a classroom and discuss the key elements of the classroom environment and our teaching and pedagogy that can help to create curious and motivated students.

Not least, we ask how we can create a "culture of curiosity" that students buy into in our classrooms, including inclusive practice, building strong relationships with our students as well as the importance of effective classroom routines and teacher role-modelling (and how they can do this).

We discuss how we can motivate students who are struggling in their personal lives and as such arrive in our classrooms not ready for learning.

We focus on pedagogy and curriculum delivery. How can we plan learning so that we engage and retain students' curiosity? How can we make learning relevant to students' lives? We offer a range of ideas for using hooks and other devices to boost engagement.

We talk about the kind of tasks we set in lessons, how we can achieve desirable difficulty so that students are challenged but motivated, and the importance of chunking work and achieving a high-but-not-too-high success rate.

We talk about the role of teacher expectations and ideas for how we should respond when students "fail" or struggle with their learning.

And we touch upon metacognition and self-regulation, the importance of teaching students how to manage their own learning, and the role of autonomy and student choice in their learning.