The Six Skills of Interest are based on two decades of research into when learning is fun for people and target helping students develop motivation and personal purpose for learning.

1. Banish Boredom! Building Student Engagement Through The Six Skills of Interest

2. To awaken interest and kindle enthusiasm is the sure way to teach easily and successfully. • Tyron Edwards A presentation from Dr. Z’s House of Fun Wilkins-O’RileyZinn zinnw@sou.eduhttp:www.wilkinsorileyzinn.wordpress.com/

3. There are no uninteresting things; there are only uninterested people.• Gilbert Keith Chesterton When is learning fun for you? Share your insights with others. What ideas and themes emerge?

4. Six Themes of Fun in Learning(Zinn 2004, 2008) C • Choice R• Relevance E• Engagement A• Active Learning T• Teacher Attitude E• Eiredaramac(Camaraderie)

5. High School Survey of Student Engagement (HSSSE), 2007 81,000 high school students in twenty-six states were surveyed by Indiana University Center for Evaluation and Education Policy. Seventy-five percent reported being bored in class (Yazzie-Mintz, 2007). An international survey of 17,000,000 fifteen-year-olds in thirty-two countries noted that forty-eight percent reported school boredom (OECD, 2004), with numbers as high as eighty-three percent reported in some countries.

6. DRUDGERY:There is a formula for drudgery in William Carl Rudiger’s (1932) book, Teaching Procedures. If interest is missing, he asserts, almost any kind of activity can be boring and unpleasant.

7. The greatest happiness comes from being vitally interested in something that excites all your energies.• Walter Annenberg Many students develop finely-honed skills of disinterest, including the ability to feign interest in order to pass their classes. What does it mean to be a genuinely interested learner? What are the qualities of an interested learner? What is the evidence that a learner is interested?

8. He thought I actually gave a damn about the class. All I wanted to do was pass. •Overheard in the student union, 2008

9. Five Minds for the Future• Howard Gardner, from Mike Baker (October 13, 2006), “What type of minds to nurture?” Disciplined: master academic subject, craft, profession; apply oneself to learning. Synthesizing: absorb, sift, select, make sense of vast amounts of data. Creating: forge new ground; find new ways of doing things. Respectful: recognize and respect the “otherness” of those different from ourselves. Ethical: actively striving to do good; trying to make the world a better place.

10. An interested learner…List generated by students, November 2009 • is deeply and seriously engaged in class assignments and activities • is curious, questions, wonders • connects studies to life • makes interdisciplinary connections • is aware of self, others, the world; observes; listens • cares, works hard, does quality work • thinks and thinks about her/his thinking • is creative; goes beyond expectations • believes s/he can make a difference • puts thought into action • is contemplative and reflective • is not complacent • is not bored; is interesting • is open to learning and believes s/he can learn from everything • is aware of biases • values process and product • is playful • is committed to and values learning

11. Skills of Interest help promote intentional learning Student to Learner to Lifelong learner Students must have initiative; they should not be mere imitators. They must learn to think and act for themselves—and be free. • Cesar Chavez

12. Learning abilities identified at Harvard as essential for adapting to a rapidly changing world of work include abilities to: define problems without a guide. ask hard questions which challenge prevailing assumptions. work in teams without guidance. work absolutely alone persuade others that your course is the right one. discuss issues and techniques in public with an eye to reaching decisions about policy. conceptualize and reorganize information into new patterns. pull what you need quickly from masses of irrelevant data. think inductively, deductively, and dialectically. attack problems heuristically. • from John Taylor Gatto (2005) “The Curriculum of Necessity or What Must an Educated Person Know?”

13. CHOICE:Something stopped me in school a little bit. Anything that I’m not interested in, I can’t even feign interest. • Quentin Tarantino

14. Choice Skill of Interest: I know how I learn and I understand that this may not be the same in every context. I actively seek opportunities to maximize my learning by integrating my interests and passions into my coursework.

15. RELEVANCE:The shepherd always tried to persuade the sheep that their interest and his own are the same. • • • Krister Stendhal

16. Relevance Skill of Interest: I find purpose and connections among things I'm studying. I connect personal resonance and pragmatic reality. I know who I am and what interests me.

17. ENGAGEMENT:For an interest to be rewarding, one must pay in discipline and dedication, especially through the difficult or boring stages which are inevitably encountered. • Mira Komarovsky

18. Engagement Skill of Interest: I attend class and deliberately find ways to be actively interested. I care about my learning and am truly present through thoughtful interaction in and out of class. I apply course content to my life and to other courses.

19. Adult Learning(Malcolm Knowles, 1990) Adults want to know why they are learning something. Adults need to learn experientially. Adults approach learning as problem- solving. Adults learn best when the topic is of immediate value.

20. ACTIVE LEARNING: Develop interest in life as you see it; the people, things, literature, music—the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself. • Henry Miller

21. Active Learning Skill of Interest: I don't just attend class; I am an integral part of making the class interesting because I am interested. I seek out additional information related to what I am learning.

22. TEACHER ATTITUDE: There are two levers for moving men: interest and fear. • Napoleon BonaparteEnthusiasm glows, radiates, permeates and immediately captures everyone’s interest. • Paul J. Meyer In your interactions with students—in and out of the classroom—what do you do that works?

23. Six Keys of Dropout PreventionWilkins-O’RileyZinn, 2008 Relevance: I have reasons to be here that are meaningful to me. Rigor: Expectations are high, and work is scaffolded to support my achievement. Recognition: My efforts are seen, appreciated, and celebrated. Respect: I am treated like a unique and valuable person; my interests are respected. Relationships: There are people here who care about me and about whom I can care. Responsibility: I am supported in the developmental processes of becoming an interested and intellectually responsible lifelong learner and can make meaningful contributions here.

24. Mattering(Schlossberg, Lynch & Chickering, 1989) •Attention: students believe that they are recognized/seen as individuals. Instructors can address this through comments on papers, encouraging students to get to know one another, and learning student names. •Importance: students believe that instructors/advisors care about what the student's goals are. Updated information is provided, advising goes beyond the formulaic and is linked to student needs. Absences are noticed. •Dependence: students feel that they are an integral part of class and that others depend on them. They are not allowed to be invisible in discussions and other class interactions. •Ego-extension: students believe that others will be proud of their accomplishments. •Appreciation: students are recognized for who they are and what they have done, receiving credit for life experience, for example. The multiple life roles that adult learners are juggling are seen and taken into account. Learners are trusted.

25. Teacher Attitude Skill of Interest: What makes teaching fun?I put myself in the place of the teacher and make my interest apparent. I go beyond requirements and produce quality work.

26. What makes teaching fun? When it comes to student behaviors, these things are a drag and these things are a delight. Hi. I’m at the grocery store. I forgot we had class this afternoon. Can you meet with me tomorrow to go over what I missed? • Actual voicemail left on Zinn’s phone, winter 2008

27. Drag! oppositional talk • blaming • whining • sucking up • not reading assigned materials • absenteeism • lack of thought • laziness (especially mental) • negativity • apathy • mediocrity • tardiness • irresponsibility • meanness • not doing assignments • late work • bullying • excuse-making • lack of consideration • disrespect • shoddy work • excessive cynicism • lack of caring • inattention in class

28. Delight? If I were queen of education, there’d only be two grades: cares and doesn’t care. • W-OZ

29. CAMARADERIE: Show interest in all people, not just those from whom you want something. Making people feel important and good about themselves is just the right thing to say. • Bo Bennett

30. Camaraderie Skill of Interest: I talk with others in and out of class--instructors and classmates. I get involved in clubs, study groups, sports, student government, and/or other activities. I am interested learning about other people and their cultures and I know how to listen and be a friend.

31. Discovery Skills of InnovationFrom “How Do Innovators Think,” by Bronwyn Fryer (Sept. 28, 2009), Harvard Business Review, describing a large-scale, six-year study of creative executives conducted by researchers Jeff Dyer and Hal Gregersen: Associating, a “cognitive skill that allows creative people to make connections across seemingly unrelated questions, problems, or ideas.” Identified as the “key skill.” Questioning, the “ability to ask ‘what if,’ ’why,’ and ‘why not’ questions that challenge the status quo.” Observation, the “ability to closely observe details, particularly the details of people’s behavior.” Experimentation, “trying on new experiences and exploring new worlds.” Networking, “with smart people who have little in common with them, but from whom they can learn.”

32. What can you do to help create student interest—and engagement—in learning?

33. Home•Work/BrainPlay Designing Home•Work assignments that encourage students to think about course concepts and content in unexpected ways is one way to encourage them to make connections. Such assignments can also build classroom community, both face-to-face and online. Home•Work also encourages imaginative, creative, and divergent thinking, and builds skills of interest and innovation. What’s one Home•Work assignment you could use with your students to build their interest in your course and/or connect it to their lives? I like a teacher who gives you something to take home to think about besides homework. • Lily Tomlin as Edith Ann

34. IN•FINITO!The true secret of happiness lies in taking genuine interest in the details of daily life. • William Morris