Habits of Success : Nudging Students to Change With Behavioural Psychology

For students to benefit from lessons, they must attend, listen, and try their best. But at times, almost all teachers struggle to manage classroom behavior, and to motivate students to learn. Drawing on decades of research on behavioral science, this book offers teachers practical strategies to get students learning. The key is students’ habits. This book reveals simple, powerful ways to help students build habits of success.

Harry Fletcher-Wood shows how teachers can use behavioral science techniques to increase motivation and improve behavior. He offers clear guidance on topics such as using role models to motivate students, making detailed plans to help students act, and building habits to ensure students keep going. The book addresses five challenges teachers face in encouraging desirable behavior:

• Choosing what change to prioritize
• Convincing students to change
• Encouraging students to commit to a plan
• Making starting easy
• Ensuring students keep going

Workshops, checklists and real-life examples illustrate how these ideas work in the classroom and make the book a resource to revisit and share. Distilling the evidence into clear principles, this innovative book is a valuable resource for new and experienced teachers alike.

Harry Fletcher-Wood is a teacher, researcher, and teacher educator. He’s fascinated by making things better and the social, psychological, and structural changes this requires. He leads a teacher educator development program and is studying for a doctorate in behavioral science.