Engaging Students: The Next Level of Working on the Work, March/2011

Is the work you give students engaging--enabling them to learn what they need to learn in order to succeed in the world? Maverick educator Phillip Schlechty believes that the key to improving education is to improve the quality of this student work. He calls this "Working the Work" (WOW), and he's developed a framework that allows educators to put the WOW principles into practice.

Working on the Work (WOW) offers a motivational framework for improving student performance by improving the quality of school designed for students. In this second edition, author Phillip Schlechty incorporates what he’s learned from the field and from the hundreds of workshops he and his organization, the Schlechty Center, have conducted since the book’s first publication. WOW is a theory of motivation that tries to answer the question: “What can teachers build into the task and activities they design for students that will increase the prospect which students will find meaning in the tasks assigned?” The guide is filled with practical wisdom.

About The Author:
Phillip C. Schlechty is founder and CEO of the Center for Leadership in School Reform. The creator of some of the nation's most innovative professional development programs for educators, he has been the recipient of the American Federation of Teachers Quest Citation and the American Educational Research Association's Professional Service Award. Schlechty is author of Schools for the 21st Century (1991), Shaking Up the Schoolhouse (2000), and Inventing Better Schools (2001) all published by Jossey-Bass.