Education has continually changed throughout the centuries of our nations history.

The advent of twenty-first century technologies has incorporated an entire new dimension into the field of education. It is the responsibility of educational leaders to ensure that their best practices adapt to the changes introduced in the classroom. The alignment towards twenty-first century best practices requires educators to always be learning. Teachers need to learn new ideas to maintain a professional level of practice. Motivating students, teaching methods, and classroom management styles represent specific aspects of the classroom that require continued learning. As students and society changes, so do the expectations of teaching within the classroom. Educators need to be properly prepared to find the most effective methods to make sure student performance remains at the highest level. Completing a graduate program in education affords the opportunity to expand ones knowledge. It provides teachers training to ensure their practices are maintaining the highest standards. Many of todays education woes stem from a lack of motivation. In my personal experience, I find that students care about what they learn in the present, but have no desire to expand upon it. . This observation is also supported by research. For example, Anderman (2010) explains that often students are not motivated for their own intellectual growth, but only desire what rewards they can get or punishments they can avoid. Many students are not motivated for the knowledge, but for the diploma to move on past high school. As educators, motivational theory expects us to get students to want to learn. The practice is often to have students perform a task over and over until it is drilled in their head. In todays world, educators need to understand that our students want to know useful applications. It is the Common Core Curriculum that is expecting teachers to show not just how, but why also. A student understanding why a task is completed motivates their learning to better understand the how.

Teaching methods have evolved over time because of educational studies that show how students learn in a variety of ways. The individuality of students and their styles provides educations reason for differentiated learning. To expect to meet the needs for all students, teachers must satisfy individuals learning needs. Continued knowledge of differentiation provides teachers with a tremendous ability in todays schools to ensure all students are learning. Available resources have developed, changed, and multiplied to truly offer several ways of teaching. It is the continued practice and growth that gives educators a bigger and bigger teaching method toolkit. The combined understanding of motivational theory and developed teaching strategies pave a path to effective classroom management. Classroom management issues are often rooted in bored students. When students lose attention, they are likely to try to focus themselves with classroom disruptions. The ability to mesh together motivation with varied teaching styles provides for less classroom management issues. Motivated students want to learn and are less likely to cause a problem. Varied teaching styles keeps students on task, less bored, and are less likely to cause a problem. Finding ways to motivate and varying methods keeps students learning and will result in a better managed student learning opportunity. The University of New England graduate program of Educational Leadership grants educators and administration the opportunity to expand their knowledge of education. The need to grow allows one to keep in touch with the age of technology and the twenty-first century. The program has certainly tied together the educational practices of today with the leadership expectations that has become integrated into all teachers. One becomes better at what they do with continued learning. As an educator, I expect my students to learn. In return, I expect that I myself must learn to ensure that I keep up with the best practices for my classroom.

References Anderman, E. M., & Anderman, L.H. (2010). Classroom Motivation. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall.