As an educator, you might often feel frustrated when students don't share your enthusiasm, passion, focus, and commitment to learning.  You have such passion for what you teach.  You see the importance of knowing and learning about the subject matter.  You see how to apply the knowledge and its importance.

You also might see student apathy. You might be asked "Why do we have to learn this?" or "What do I have to know for the test?"  Can we motivate our students? What can we do from the 'outside' so that they become motivated from the inside?

This tutorial is based on a weekend seminar presented in February 2005 by Debra Murray, Associate Professor in Psychology at Vertibo University. She received her Doctor of Psychology degree from the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, MN.  The complete PowerPoint she used in the seminar is available here.  Additional handouts are located throughout the tutorial.

Debra Murray asks "Why do students resist change?"  If we want behaviors to change in our classes, we need to understand why students resist, what the stages of change are once the process begins, and what roadblocks we might encounter. 
 
The Center for Teaching and Learning offers other tutorials that you might find helpful.  For example, you can find more information about active learning from Getting Started with Active Teaching, Active Learning in Diverse Classrooms, and Active Learning in an Online Environment. Classroom Management Strategies and Classroom Incivility offer suggestions for dealing with resistant and disruptive student behaviors. CTL's tutorials cover a wide variety of topics and can help you to overcome and resolve challenges that you may encounter.

Debra Murray has taught several courses in psychology on the topics of chemical abuse, behavior disorders, general psychology, testing, counseling theory, interviewing skills, to name a few. She has also been instrumental ininitiating state certification for a series of psychology department courses emphasizing addictions. She has served as Advisor for the Psychology Club, coordinated the Person College and Community (PCC) course, designed to facilitate the transition of first semester college students. She developed course curricula, the selection and training of instructors, the organization of weekly instructor meetings, and coordinated of a variety of activities related to the PCC course. She designed and implemented the Connect Program, program training students to serve as peer educators and student advocates, targeting the reduction of alcohol/ drug consumption among college students.

Dr. Murray has served as chemical dependence counselor at Behavioral Health outpatient and residential facilities.  She has been responsible for the operation of the Families and Schools Together (F.A.S.T.) Project, a prevention program focusing on healthy families.

All of the materials contained in this Web site are protected by copyright. Copying, displaying and/or distributing copyrighted works may infringe the owner’s copyright. For more information on copyright law please see the U.S. Copyright Office site at http://www.loc.gov/copyright/, and for the Minnesota State Colleges & Universities System's policy on copyright, please see http://intellectualproperty.mnscu.edu/. For permission to use any materials found herein, please contact the original author or the Center for Teaching and Learning at ctl@so.mnscu.edu.