Top 5 ways to get disengaged kids motivated to learn

By Nikki Davies
Community contribution / November 3, 2019

Q: How do I motivate my disengaged students?

Motivating students to engage in learning, to push through challenges, to put in effort and to change or modify their ...

This story appeared in the November 2019 edition of Australian Teacher Magazine.

Behaviour and Autism Support

Veritas Harrogate

Teaching Aides & Special Needs / Mar 02, 2026

Primary Educator

Veritas Leeds

Teaching - Primary / Mar 02, 2026

Service Manager

Coming Soon – Story House Early Learning Diamond Creek Diamond Creek VIC

An opportunity to have influence and help inspire the minds of our future leaders. Let us enlighten you on how we support our respected Story House-ers.

Childcare & Outside School Hours Care / Mar 02, 2026

School news / More than 25,000 students gifted front-row Formula 1 GP access

Thousands of students are being gifted a front-row seat to see the real-world power of science, maths and engineering on show at Melbourne’s Formula 1 Qatar Airways Australian Grand Prix 2026.

School news / Helping schools on the frontline of dealing with childhood trauma: new book

Authored by several internationally recognised trauma-informed researchers from here and overeseas, a new book argues that traditional approaches to discipline and behaviour management are often ill-suited to the reality many students face today.

School news / The world-leading primary mental health program having an extraordinary impact

A whole-school approach to wellbeing that has been producing phenomenal results in helping teachers better identify and support students and creating referral pathways to local mental health services, will be rolled out to every public primary sch...

School news / The digital delusion: teacher’s shift to tech-free lessons shows promising results

Before trialling a tech-free approach in her Year 12 Legal Studies classroom, Nicole Horton was seeing fractured attention, a sea of glazed over faces and eyes fixated on screens – the digital distraction was real, she says.

School news / Kids as young as 10 to be fitted with ankle bracelets, Qld police not impressed

Police and youth advocates are querying whether new state laws that will see children as young as 10 fitted with ankle bracelets are workable.

School news / Embed literacy instruction into PDHPE for incredible results: leading educator

Literacy and the explicit teaching of writing skills ought to be a focus of all PDHPE teachers’ practice and not left solely to English departments to handle, a leading educator has said.

School news / Gift to help educators teach maths with ‘confidence, clarity and impact’

A Melbourne university has received a $2.5 million gift to “use its foundations in evidence-based learning to help address Australia’s mathematics crisis”.

School news / Identifying children at risk of speech disorders to be made easier: new resource

A new tool for identifying children at risk of speech disorders has been developed by Melbourne researchers, reducing unnecessary treatment for common speech errors that often resolve on their own.

School news / ‘Improved behaviour across the board’: student leadership program sees huge results

Primary school children given the chance to teach their younger peers are showing remarkable improvements in their confidence, class work and mental health.

School news / ‘Let’s get on with it’: induction policies still ignoring substitute teachers

Inequitable induction arrangements for substitute teachers come at a professional, emotional and career development cost, new research has flagged.

Top 5 ways to get disengaged kids motivated to learn

Comments

EducationID

Our services

Ad centre