Something I have found to be an incredible influence upon my students is to have them chat with the very best about how the best got to be the best.
Rex Richardson has been over a few times and they have been lucky enough to work with him in masterclass situations and joining him in concert. He had an incredible influence upon one young lad in particular - knowing that the student (who was 9 at the time) wanted to get some jazz stuff done they worked on some simple improvising and afterwards the young student in question was chatting to Rex and asked the simple question "what do I need to do to play jazz?"
The answer was "learn your scales."
Well, sure enough, by the time this kid reached 10 he knew ALL his scales - major, minor, wholetone, chromatic and had started getting to grips with modes, blues and pentatonic scales.
He had also started transcribing solos
Not every student had quite this reaction to Rex's visit, but every one of them started putting more emphasis on learning their scales and fundamentals - because Rex had told them to do so.
The fact that I had told them the same every lesson didn't have the same impact - they saw me too often to listen to me. Sometimes we must admit that an external source saying the same thing to our students as we do every week can be very beneficial.