Changing Attitudes: A Strategy for Motivating Students to Learn [Paperback]

Vincent Ryan Ruggiero (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0205269729 | ISBN-13: 978-0205269723 | Publication Date: February 18, 1998 | Edition: 1

It's easy to identify students with negative attitudes toward school, schoolwork and teachers. They're usually bored, disruptive, rebellious, argumentative, withdrawn, inattentive, frequently tardy or frequently absent. Or all of the above! But now-at last-help is available for teachers who care enough to affect a change. Changing Attitudes is the first and only teacher's handbook to address the growing problem of negative attitudes. By using "informal" logic-a.k.a. critical thinking-teachers can now correct negative attitudes and thereby motivate students to learn. The book lays out a three-step strategy: 1. Identify negative attitudes; 2. Show students how to express those attitudes as ideas; 3. Help students analyze the ideas and reach their own conclusions as to their validity. Packed with contemporary examples, the book helps teachers and their students understand and use informal logic to critically examine negative attitudes. Techniques for identifying and classifying the most harmful attitudes, to expose the fallacious thinking underlying them are also included. All teachers. A Longwood Professional Book.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

It's easy to identify students with negative attitudes toward school, schoolwork and teachers. They're usually bored, disruptive, rebellious, argumentative, withdrawn, inattentive, frequently tardy or frequently absent. Or all of the above! But now-at last-help is available for teachers who care enough to affect a change. Changing Attitudes is the first and only teacher's handbook to address the growing problem of negative attitudes. By using "informal" logic-a.k.a. critical thinking-teachers can now correct negative attitudes and thereby motivate students to learn. The book lays out a three-step strategy: 1. Identify negative attitudes; 2. Show students how to express those attitudes as ideas; 3. Help students analyze the ideas and reach their own conclusions as to their validity. Packed with contemporary examples, the book helps teachers and their students understand and use informal logic to critically examine negative attitudes. Techniques for identifying and classifying the most harmful attitudes, to expose the fallacious thinking underlying them are also included. All teachers. A Longwood Professional Book.

Product Details

• Paperback: 125 pages
• Publisher: Allyn & Bacon; 1 edition (February 18, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0205269729
• ISBN-13: 978-0205269723
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,239,318 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A useful and sensible guide for classroom teachers, February 13, 2003

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Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Changing Attitudes: A Strategy for Motivating Students to Learn (Paperback)

Changing Attitudes: A Strategy For Motivating Students To Learn by Vincent Ryan Ruggiero (a pioneer in the teaching of creative and critical thinking who is currently President of Mind Power, Inc.) is a useful and sensible guide for classroom teachers to helping and getting through to their students who are scholastically impeded with negative attitudes toward school, schoolwork, and teachers. Individual chapters focus upon how to identify negative attitudes, how to show students to express their attitudes as ideas, and how to help students learn to analyze these ideas for themselves. One example is learning to replace the harmful idea of "Whoever disagrees with me commits an offense against me" to "Disagreement is not necessarily personal. It can be exclusively about the idea in question, and in that case no offense is committed." Changing Attitudes is also very highly recommended for parents who are attempting to teach their own children the basics of sound reasoning and critical thinking, as well as formal classroom educators.