A student doesn’t have to favor math over video games to be a successful math learner.

Want to get notified about new posts? Join the mailing list and follow on X/Twitter.

Their behavior just needs to align with the learning process, which can often (not always, but quite often) be made to happen through incentives: e.g., “if you complete all your work this week then we’ll go get ice cream on the weekend,” or “no video games tonight until you complete your work.”

The incentive doesn’t have to be extreme, it just needs to be centered around something that the student actually cares about, whether that be dessert, gaming, movies, books, etc.

Of course, this won’t work for a student who is dead-set on refusing to do math, but it will work for many students who would much rather play video games than do math.

Want to get notified about new posts? Join the mailing list and follow on X/Twitter.