This professional development series is designed to accompany and help put into practice the ideas in Toshalis and Nakkula’s Motivation, Engagement and Student Voice and “Prioritizing Motivation and Engagement” in Anytime, Anywhere: Student-Centered Learning for Schools and Teachers. For many teachers the issues discussed in those pieces are at the heart of the student experience they are trying to provide.

The activities and materials in this toolkit will help educators understand and apply the concepts explained in the paper. The activities are designed to facilitate the development of a mindset that encourages a critical analysis of what participants believe, what they do, and what might need to be changed to fully realize the potential of student-centered teaching. Some activities are best conducted before participants read the paper or book chapter and some are best done after it has already been read (see table 1).

Taking seriously the authors’ claim that “to build student-centered classrooms we need to build schools and school cultures that are teacher centered,” the activities are easily personalized for particular audiences and may be adapted to fit time and location constraints. The complete series with all handouts can be downloaded as a single PDF. The slides and handouts are also included as separate Word and PowerPoint versions to encourage further customization. Additionally, each activity is available on its own.