Are you focusing on small classroom victories? Teaching can be exhausting, and it can seem like a futile endeavor at times. The amount of work that goes into a single day or unit of instruction is tremendous, without a necessary guarantee of student success. So when a unit is finished, or a hard day is done, it’s easy to look … Read More
5 Reasons to STOP Using Textbooks in Your Lesson Planning
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
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
Why Student Success Isn’t A Competition
Teaching Should not be “Survival of The Fittest” As a teacher, it can be hard to escape the political aspects of the job. As a mentor of mine once cleverly stated: “Choosing a career in education is choosing a career in politics.” These politics are not making our profession any easier, and they tend to increase pressure on teachers to produce … Read More