Now, consider how engaged and attentive you would be if the plane was experiencing real technical difficulties and you were afraid. You would be riveted by the same lesson and hanging on the attendant's every word. Your recall would be excellent because the information suddenly has become extremely relevant and compelling to you.

Emotion drives all learning, but this is especially so for adolescents, says Karen Hume in a recent webinar on the adolescent learner( Bring out the best in your adolescents: How to use developmental psychology to choose the best instructional strategies for your Grades 6-10 students). If adolescents feel left out or think the teacher doesn't like them or don't think they are doing well in the class, these feelings can get in the way of engagement and learning. They need to feel good about themselves and how they are doing in school and need to be pulled into learning by curiosity and and a sense that the material is relevant to them.

The hypothalamus, which regulates hormones and is the seat of the most primitive emotions such as fear, anger and aggression, is at its most active during the adolescent years, Karen says. As every teacher knows, early adolescents can be very self-conscious and display inconsistent and unpredictable emotions.

To be effective, teachers must be attuned to the emotional state and health of their adolescents and engage them at that level, Karen says.

Here are 3 of Karen's suggestions for reaching adolescents through their emotions to engage them more fully in learning:

How's it going journal--Have students keep a journal in which they record their feelings about their progress in the class and the material you are covering. This journal will provide you with rich information about how well or not well students are doing from their perspective. Give them a few minutes in class to record an entry and then you can also make a response when you review the journals.

2 by 10--If you have a very disengaged student, spend 2 minutes every day for 10 days communicating with this student outside of class about topics outside of school, topics that are personally interesting and relevant to them. This technique is very effective in creating a bond with students and helping them engage more in class.

Anticipation guides--Before students read a book, story or other assigned material, have them read a list of controversial statements. These should not be factual statements. (This is a pretest, not an anticipation guide.)But controversial statements such as, " If you love someone, you are morally obligated to take care of them no matter what." You can discuss these statements and students' views on these statements once they have begun to read the material.

Related resource:

Webinar with Karen Hume now available on CD-ROM "Bring out the best in your adolescents: How to use developmental psychology to choose the best instructional strategies for your Grades 6-10 students"

The new software would allow me to create multiple color-coded calendars (work, personal, fitness), task lists color-coded by priority level, pop-up reminders and email reminders that would never let me forget all the things that I should be doing. I would be able to overlay the calendars to identify any conflicts and display my calendars by year for long-range planning and by month, week and day for short-term planning.

As I clocked hour after hour over the holiday working out the kinks of my new software, I thought about all the time my calendar would save me if I ever got it running.

The company wisely does not provide chat support or phone support. Customers must send an email if they have a problem and wait for a response that the company promises will appear in your inbox in a 24-hour period.

While waiting for a response on a problem I was having with syncing my new calendar with Google calendar, I scoured the online documentation, the FAQs and support forums and tried the same things over and over again.

This was no longer healthy frustration.

Recently, two ERN webinar speakers, Marcy Cook and Jim Knight, spoke about the importance of healthy frustration in 2 entirely different contexts. Marcy Cook spoke about teaching K-8 math and Jim Knight spoke about using video to work with teachers to improve instruction.

When teaching math, Marcy says teachers need to challenge children enough to keep them motivated and engaged, but not so much that they will get discouraged and demoralized. An important job for many math teachers is to figure out where that healthy level of frustration is for each of their students.

In using video to help teachers improve, Jim says coaches need to tread carefully and be aware that when teachers see a video of themselves in the classroom it can be frustrating. It's frustrating because it highlights the gap between a teacher's dreams and aspirations and the reality. Yet, it opens the door to making realistic changes and improvements. Somehow, the coach must help the teacher work in a spirit of healthy frustration rather than unhealthy frustration.

My unhealthy frustration with my calendar software was trying to tell me something. I was in over my head and did not have the knowledge and skill level to figure this out on my own. Email support was on holiday. At this rate, the calendar would never save me as much time as I was putting into it.

It was time to set a more sensible goal.

I dropped the syncing idea for the moment and focused on setting up a good desktop calendar. While a new year, whether it is a new calendar year or a new school year, is likely to fire us up with plans and aspirations for ourselves and our students, Marcy Cook and Jim Knight remind us that you can only set the bar so high, so fast. Healthy frustration is a good way to help guide us in setting a realistic pace.

Related resources:

Webinar with Jim Knight now available on CD-ROM "How to use video effectively to coach teachers to make improvements in instruction "

Webinar with Marcy Cook now available on CD-ROM "How to create a math classroom that motivates and engages students"

Churning is a word that usually refers to turbulent mortgage or security markets. Yet it's a word that aptly describes the rapid changes in literacy we are experiencing today.

We can easily see the effects of technology use on our reading habits. But, the effects on writing, while not often discussed, are just as profound, according to technology guru William Richardson, who also happens to be a veteran English teacher.

"Connective writing" is the term Richardson uses to describe this evolving form of writing. Far from thinking that writing is becoming obsolete, Richardson firmly believes writing is one of the most important skills students will need to be successful in their lives. It's just that the practice and purpose of writing has changed.

What was once a monologue is increasingly becoming a dialogue. Students used to write in closed spaces, for the classroom, for their teachers, for themselves. But now when they write online, they have the potential to reach a global audience, Richardson says. They have the opportunity to connect with people who share their passions and interests and who can become their teachers.

Not very long ago, a reasonable answer to the question, "what is the purpose of writing," would have been, "to express my thoughts and ideas." But that was then. A more updated take on the purpose of writing, according to Richardson, is that it is to connect with others in order to share and build on each other's thoughts and ideas.

With all the uncertainties that surround the many changes in literacy practices, many educators have taken the conservative stance. They are the keepers or guardians of the written word as we know it. But one result of this approach is that the literacy practices that most people engage in every day online "don't count" in school as much as traditional practices such as reading books and writing essays.

Schools are wary of online writing for other reasons besides questions about its value. They also want to keep students focused on learning rather than on all the distractions of social networking and protect them from predators.

With 2 billion people now online, Richardson says teaching and learning can take place anywhere, anyplace and with anyone.

Here's Richardson's biggest dare to schools: Instead of seeing this global community as 2 billion potential predators, look at it as 2 billion potential teachers and collaborators. Rather than keeping every student beneath the radar, help each student graduate with a prominent internet profile and global connections.

Related resource:

Webinar with William Richardson now available on CD-ROM "Motivate students to improve their writing with technology-driven strategies"

One of the scariest things a teacher can do is to discuss controversial topics with relatively uninformed students, says Matt Rickey, a high school teacher in Kendallville, Indiana.

"Nothing could possibly go wrong," says Rickey, with more than a hint of sarcasm.  In a special 9/11 issue of journal, The Social Studies,  Rickey says he is willing to tread the minefield of teaching 9/11 because of his 10-year commitment to teaching students about what happened on that day and its far-reaching repercussions.

"So, why would an otherwise sane teacher take the risk of hurting students, angering parents, or putting administrators in a position of having to defend the teacher in question? The short answer is that this kind of discussion must take place," he says.

Rickey began teaching a mini-unit on 9/11 in his sociology class shortly after the attack when emotions were still running high. He was unclear what approach to take with his students. But then he discovered a documentary by 2 French filmmakers simply called "9/11" which now culminates his 2-week unit. Students are spellbound by the story of Ladder 1 in New York City, he says.

By then, the students have worked on a timeline of terrorist attacks beginning with the 1972 Olympic games in Munich, they have studied maps of the Middle East and learned the names of the attackers and of U.S. officials. The unit ends with a focus on how Americans overcome adversity (military, volunteerism, fundraisers, concerts, memorials, etc.)

Ten years after the surreal attack on the World Trade Center, social studies researchers say 9/11 is remarkably absent from school curricula. Some of the major reasons teachers steer clear of the topic are fear of controversy, concerns about the complexity of the subject, worries about not having enough time to devote to the subject and still cover all the other required subjects in the curriculum, and lack of confidence in one's own knowledge to do justice to the subject.

But Rickey and other teachers who are dedicated to teaching 9/11 say schools not only have a responsibility to keep alive the memory of 9/11, but also to take advantage of a rich opportunity to engage students in a meaningful dialogue about global events and to help them become more informed citizens.

The 10th anniversary of 9/11 is an opportunity for educators to consider if and how they should bring this difficult topic back into their classrooms. 

Related article with teaching resources:

Why 9/11 should be taught more in school