Choose to Learn: Teaching for Success Every Day

By Russell T. Osguthorpe and Lolly S. Osguthorpe

Education becomes exciting and successful when both learners and teachers accomplish what they previously thought to be impossible. Written in an inspirational, compelling style, this resource shows educators how to motivate students to be successful learners through the development of key personal attributes that foster success.

This user-friendly book is organized around an easy-to-use, research-based model derived from multiple fields, including education, psychology, and philosophy, and is focused around eight field-tested principles, including the "Three D's of Success"—desire, decision, and determination—that can
• Increase every learner's self-confidence
• Create new expectations and infuse students with new energy and motivation
• Encourage individuals to go beyond familiar goals, take manageable risks, and achieve desired outcomes
Choose to Learn gives teachers a proven approach for helping students exceed their expectations and experience academic growth by making a conscious decision to learn and to succeed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Skyhorse
• Release date: Oct 6, 2015
• ISBN: 9781510700888

Book preview

Cover Page of Choose to LearnHalf Title of Choose to Learn

To our children, who continue to teach us that we can always choose to learn.

Title Page of Choose to Learn

Copyright © 2009 by Corwin Press

First Skyhorse Publishing edition 2015

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Skyhorse Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

Skyhorse Publishing books may be purchased in bulk at special discounts for sales promotion, corporate gifts, fund-raising, or educational purposes. Special editions can also be created to specifications. For details, contact the Special Sales Department, Skyhorse Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018 or [e-mail].

Skyhorse® and Skyhorse Publishing® are registered trademarks of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.®, a Delaware corporation.

Visit our website at www.skyhorsepublishing.com.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Cover design by Monique Hahn

Print ISBN: 978-1-63450-316-7

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-5107-0088-8

Printed in China

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

About the Authors

Introduction

Chapter 1: The Three D’s of Success

Desire

Decision

Determination

Expectations

Applying the Three D’s of Success

Making It Happen

Chapter 2: Urgency Not Pressure

Differences Between Pressure and Urgency

Urgency and Learning

Making It Happen

Chapter 3: Do Something You’ve Never Done Before

Why Avoid the Unfamiliar?

The Zone of Attainable Success

Teacher as Designer

Making It Happen

Chapter 4: Light the Fire

Linked to the Life of the Learner

Challenging

Inspiring

Making It Happen

Chapter 5: Help Is on the Way

Help That Invites

Help That Instructs

Help That Confirms

Think It, Choose It, Do It, Succeed

Making It Happen

Chapter 6: Do the Right Thing for the Right Reason

The Opposite of an Addiction to Failure

Motives and Actions

The Three D’s of Success

Lighting the Fire

Can One Judge Another’s Motives?

Making It Happen

Chapter 7: Extinguish the Negative

Make No Excuses

An Eye of Faith

Help and Faith

Vision and Faith

Making It Happen

Chapter 8: Choose to Lead

Who Should Lead?

Leading and Helping

Perception and Leadership

Making It Happen

Epilogue: Expect Success

References

Index

Preface

In a way we have been writing this book our whole lives. Lolly is a sixth-grade teacher. Russ is a university professor. We are parents of five children and grandparents of sixteen grandchildren. It is in living these roles that the principles in this book have emerged. Some would say that we have been researching our own lived experience, a method of making meaning by reflecting on one’s life (e.g., Van Manen, 1990). Others might say that we have been conducting studies in appreciative inquiry, an approach that helps improve whole organizations by focusing on their core strengths (Cooperrider & Whitney, 2005). Still others might conclude that we have drawn from accepted theories in psychology or sociology such as self-efficacy theory (Bandura, 1997).

This volume might be viewed as a book to improve teaching and learning, a self-help book, or a guide to improve the performance of an entire school. We are not concerned about which view readers take; we simply want to achieve one central purpose: helping readers go beyond where they have gone before—doing better than they thought they could do—and in the process, helping others do the same. This is the central message of this book, and it applies to educators and those they educate—such as teachers, principals, and students—but it also applies to parents and families. We believe that this broad application is possible because the principles we describe in this book are fundamental to human improvement.

THE MODEL

This book is organized around a model that we call Choose to Learn. This model consists of eight principles that lead to success (the first principle). The remaining principles are urgency, risk, passion, help, motives, faith, and leadership. By the time you finish the book, these one-word descriptors will help you remember each of the principles we include in the book and will serve as reminders of how you can use these principles to help students and other teachers.

Everything in the model is based on an individual’s power to make personal choices—decisions that lead one closer to or further away from learning. That is why the illustration of the model at the beginning of each chapter is surrounded by the words The Power of Personal Agency. If someone were to ask us about the theoretical premise of the book, we would explain that every diagram, every table, every illustration rests on that one premise: the power of personal agency. Our purpose is to help every reader magnify that power and use it to benefit others.

APPLYING THE MODEL

A model or an idea is valuable only to the degree that it is practiced. So many potential advances in education are ineffective not because the ideas are useless but because the ideas are not used. To help readers use the ideas in this book, we have included at the end of each chapter a section titled Making It Happen. This section contains suggestions for teachers to use the principles in each chapter to help students become more successful in their learning. Each suggestion is based on real experience with real students in real classrooms. Because we have used these suggestions in our own teaching, we are confident that when you use them, you will see marked improvement in student learning.

We do not see the lists of ideas in the Making It Happen sections as exhaustive. Instead, they are a way for teachers to begin experimenting with the principles that flow out of each part of the model.

AUTHOR WEB SITE

We invite all readers to share with us your ideas for implementing the model. Some of these ideas will focus on how you used the model in the classroom. Others will emphasize personal applications of the model in your own life. To share an idea or learn about others’ ideas, simply go to the following Web site: http://choosetolearn.net/. In addition to a readers’ forum, the site will contain podcasts of the authors describing how to use the principles in the book to help students and others choose to learn.

HELPING EVERYONE BECOME A LEARNER

There are few things in life more exciting than doing better than we’ve done before. Life, in one sense, is a series of learning experiences. The more we learn about ourselves and about the world around us, the better our life becomes—but only if we succeed in these learning experiences. If the challenges we face in the classroom or in the home or in our private space overwhelm us, we learn about defeat and may in the process become addicted to it. Then we become less able to face the next difficulty that comes. However, if we overcome the challenges, we learn about victory and become stronger and more certain that we can accomplish whatever goal we may set.

We agree with Benjamin Barber, a renowned sociologist, who said, "I don’t divide the world into the weak and the strong, or the successes and the failures…. I divide the world into the learners and nonlearners" (see Dweck, 2006, p. 16; emphasis added). The person who chooses not to learn—and to avoid a task because it is too daunting—chooses not to live life to its fullest. The one who says, This is good enough, I don’t need to do any better, never feels the sensation of overcoming the seemingly impossible. This book is about helping oneself and others become learners by feeling those sensations every day.

Note: When we share stories from our own experience, we will use first person. Accounts of younger learners are usually Lolly’s, while those of adult students are Russ’s.

Acknowledgments

Most who have contributed to this book have done so indirectly, not knowing that they were the ones who lit our fire. Our children taught us and continue to teach us that the power to choose is in each one of us. Our missionaries taught us that everyone can succeed and that faith works. Our students teach us daily that we can all do better than we think we can do. And our parents taught us never to give up. To all of these we owe a debt that we can never completely repay. And to those who have helped us directly, we also give thanks: Mary May Osguthorpe, for her talents in graphic artwork and her eagerness to offer those talents; Debbie Stollenwerk and Allison Scott for their enthusiasm, encouragement, and thoughtful suggestions; Mary Tederstrom and Libby Larson for their careful editing of the final manuscript; as well as all of the reviewers who gave helpful suggestions on early drafts of the book:

Michael J. Butts

High School Principal

Watertown School District 200 Ninth St NE

Watertown, South Dakota

Lori L. Grossman

Instructional Coordinator, New Teacher Induction and Mentoring, Professional Development Services

Houston Independent School District

Houston, Texas

Barbara Hayhurst

Special Education Teacher

Vallivue School District

Caldwell, Idaho

Pauline H. Jacroux

Retired First Grade Teacher

Kailua, Hawai‘i

Susan Kessler, EdD

Assistant Principal

Hillsboro High School

Nashville, Tennessee

Renee Peoples, NBCT

Fourth Grade Teacher/Math Coach

West Elementary/Swain County

Bryson City, North Carolina

Steve Reifman

Elementary School Teacher

Roosevelt School, Santa Monica

Santa Monica, California

Marilyn Steneken

Middle School Teacher

Sparta, New Jersey

Charre Todd

District Science Coach

Crossett Public Schools

Crossett, Arkansas

Stephen Valentine

English Department Chair

Montclair Kimberley Academy

Montclair, New Jersey

About the Authors

Russell T. Osguthorpe, professor of instructional psychology and technology, currently serves as director of the Center for Teaching and Learning at Brigham Young University. He has also served as chair of his department and associate dean of the David O. McKay School of Education. In 1998 he was awarded the Martha Jane Knowlton Corey University Professorship. Prior to joining Brigham Young University, he served on the faculty of the National Technical Institute for the Deaf in Rochester, New York. He speaks several languages; has collaborated on educational projects in China, Europe, and Polynesia; and has been a visiting scholar at the University of Toronto and the University of Paris. He has authored five books and more than fifty journal articles on instructional design, teacher education, and special education.

Lolly S. Osguthorpe currently teaches sixth grade at Rock Canyon Elementary School in Provo, Utah. With a background in early childhood education and elementary education, including a minor in music, she taught preschool, tutored young reading and math students, and coached voice and piano students of all ages. In the past she served as president of the PTA and on school and community councils. She has held numerous teaching and leadership positions in children’s, youth, and women’s