Description

PIR 2027: September 27: Greg Wolcott

The New Science of Student Behavior, Motivation, and Engagement

Please, email Jenny Combs to get registered: jenny_combs@mtace.org

By the end of the day, participants will be able to:

Understand why students do what they do. We begin with the Human Behavior and Learning Cycle, the five-stage process every brain runs through in every lesson: Predict, Perceive, Process, Produce, and uPdate. Teachers will learn what happens when a student feels threatened, and the brain bypasses higher-level thinking, and why so many “behavior problems” are actually this bypass in action.

Identify the three psychological needs behind every behavior. Decades of research in Self-Determination Theory show that students act out or shut down when one of three needs goes unmet: Autonomy, Belonging, or Competence. Teachers will practice identifying which need is running low based on what the behavior looks like, using the Behavior Indicator Matrix to move from “What is wrong with this kid?” to “What does this kid need?”

Adopt the ASCEND mindset. ASCEND is not a program or a checklist. It is a way of seeing students: Anticipatory rather than reactive, Strengths-Based rather than deficit-based, Context-Dependent, Environmentally Conducive, Needs-Driven, and Dynamic. Teachers will examine its opposite, the DRAIN lens, and recognize that DRAIN is not a description of bad teachers. It is what all of us default to when we are stressed, and it is a state, not a trait.

Spot the common pitfalls that drain student motivation. Even well-intentioned practices can thwart the three needs: over-scaffolding that floods working memory, controlling language, deficit-first responses, and public comparison systems. Teachers will learn to name the pitfall, stop the drain, and build the path.

Leave with practices they can use tomorrow morning. Participants will work with concrete tools from the book, including the four-step discipline response (Restate, Reteach, Reset, Reconnect), the AIM lesson opener (Activity, Interaction, Materials), strengths-first responses to challenging behavior, and strategies for offering meaningful choice and relevancy.

Teachers will leave with a shared vocabulary for talking about behavior, a research-grounded way to interpret what they see in the classroom, and a set of first-response moves that protect the relationship while addressing the behavior.