As I continue working with more and more teachers I’m often surprised at how many I still see “page turning” to plan instruction. “Page turning” is a form of lesson planning that a teacher uses, that is simply opening a textbook and continuing where they left off during the last lesson. Now don’t get me wrong, textbooks have their place … Read More
5 Ways to Give Your Students More Freedom in Your Classroom
Let Freedom Ring in Your Classroom! When the bell rings, is it the ring of freedom or that of condemnation for your students at the start of class? Freedom is something that we hold very dear to our hearts in this country. We wave flags to celebrate it, our soldiers sacrifice their lives to protect it, and we tout it … Read More
Why You Need Standards Based Grading in Your Classroom
Let’s Make This Simple: We can pretend that because we are teachers we should have autonomous and authoritative control over everything that goes in our grade books, and that we should get to decide how we grade, what our grade books look like, and what is represented in them. As you clutch your grade book against your chest protectively, I’m … Read More
1 Simple Way to Motivate Students
Motivating students is probably one of the hardest things we do as teachers. Delivering content is meaningless without a student motivated to learn and apply it. During our workshops this is one of the most common topics that come up. While this is usually in the context of Mastery Learning the general advice I give us universally applicable to any instructional model. … Read More
Stop Hiding and Start Standing Out While Teaching
I distinctively remember during in my first year of teaching; a colleague telling me: “Hey, your first year of teaching…just blend in and fly under the radar to get through it.” I also remember nodding my head and smiling as I thought, “WHY?” I made the decision, then and there, that I wasn’t going to take the well intentioned advice of … Read More