Ok…as you lay awake, wide-eyed and nervous as the first part of the school year is in full swing, I want you to know something: It’s all going to be fine! Try to ignore that weird dream you have about waking up late and realizing you have NO PLAN (yeah…bet you didn’t know we all have that dream). Instead of focusing on all … Read More
Making Mastery Learning Make Sense
One of the most common questions I get from other teachers is why I chose to use mastery learning in my classroom. To be honest, there are a lot of techniques, best practices, and research studies out there, but for me, mastery learning includes and incorporates the most successful and practical pieces of all of them. Mastery learning makes even … Read More
Shut Up, And Let Them Speak!
Never say ANYTHING in your classroom that a student can say themselves. Whoa, don’t get too mad. I was just trying to get your attention. I wanted to take a few minutes and talk about something that changed my classroom forever. I stopped answering my students’ questions and started responding with more questions. This seems a bit backwards at first … Read More
5 Changes That Saved My Teaching Career
I had the most difficult and challenging year of my life in the classroom last year. I had a ton of management issues, low student performance, and basically anything else that could go wrong went wrong. After a year like that, I knew I had two options: look for another line of work (like Burger King, for example), or … Read More
Where Did this Come From?
The Worst Year of My Career Sometimes, something amazing comes from something you hoped you never experienced. As teachers, we all dream of having a life-long impact on our students’ lives and inspiring brilliant minds, like the fairytales we see in movies or in books. The truth is, teaching is a lot harder than most think. Even those of us … Read More