Attitude Isn't Everything

But It's a Lot

Attitude Can Be an Instructional Goal

Instructors should want students to take interest in learning, to have great attitude that helps them learn. Teaching should increase interest in the subject, make students want to apply their learning, and avoid reducing their interest in the subject, which is what attitude conveys.

Adjust to Influence Attitudes

Because the conditions and consequences of learning affect attitude, instructors should be able to distinguish the conditions and consequences that increase interest from those that decrease interest. Watch for what promotes your student’s engagement, and do more of those things. Also watch for what diminishes your student’s engagement, and do less of those things.

Produce Benefits for After Instruction

To teach is to attempt to change students in the way that the instructor desires, including for students to be able to articulate or do something that they previously could not, or to feel differently about something. To learn is to be different after instruction. An instructor’s main concern should thus be how students are different after instruction. The attitude you foster in students toward their own learning can be one of those post-instruction gifts that students can retain.

Develop a Keen Eye and Sensitivity

Other persons also influence learning, but instructors take direct responsibility to influence learning and must therefore do what they can, within resource and role constraints, to achieve it. Instructors cannot always know when students are learning. Instructors must instead accentuate things that positively influence learning while diminishing things that negatively influence learning. Much of what instructors need to know about students, like their attitude, their knowledge, and their understanding, instructors must infer. Instructors infer only from visible behavior. Develop a keen eye for observing student behavior, and adjust practices to promote positive engagement.