Helping Kids Achieve Their Best: Understanding and using motivation in the classroom

Professor McInerney extracts powerful, eminently practical lessons for good teaching from sound psychological principles. Highly readable.

Professor Martin V. Covington, University of California at Berkeley

As one who has spent a career reading books on ‘motivation’, I can recall only a mere few that have managed to hit the right tone for those who would teach. And this one does so fully mindful of current theory and research.

Professor Martin Maehr, University of Michigan

Dennis McInerney has done an outstanding job of bringing together all of the most relevant work on student motivation, presenting it in such a way that it is understandable and appealing to teachers. This book is a must addition to every teacher education program.

Professor Michael Pressley, University of Notre Dame; Editor, Journal of Educational Psychology

A key factor in successful learning at all ages is a learner’s motivation. So the ability to facilitate student motivation is central to successful teaching, particularly when children aren’t inherently interested in learning.

Helping Kids Achieve Their Best is a practical guide to motivating younger and older learners. It looks at why some students are easier to motivate than others, and why students lose motivation as they become older. McInerney outlines strategies teachers can use in the classroom, taking into account the needs of students from different backgrounds.

The book is richly illustrated with vignettes and case studies, and includes questions and exercises to help teachers apply the suggested approaches in their own situations.