“Highly effective teachers use procedures and systems to maximize the value of each minute of learning...To be clear, these highly effective teachers sweat the details not because they are obsessed with control but because they see that this attention to detail translates into student learning.” Steven Farr, Teaching As Leadership Sweat The Details From my […]
Of all the challenges posed by the implementation of the Common Core State Standards, this may be the greatest: if we are truly to be a nation of college-goers, we must not only raise the bar on what students learn but we must also leverage an understanding of noncognitive factors to teach adolescents how to […]
A Duty To Uncover Potential As educators we have a responsibility to uncover the potential in every student. A no opt policy can aid us in fulfilling this duty. I told the story in this article of a student I observed in a classroom who was allowed to opt out. When asked about this student […]
Students Want To Engage A few years ago I was visiting a high school and had the opportunity to observe a class and watched the following story unfold. While the teacher was starting class, with a lecture (yawn), a student walked in tardy. What I found interesting is that this teacher did not acknowledge the […]
“GENERATION has the effect of making the mind more receptive to new learning…What is it? Generation is an attempt to answer a question or solve a problem before being shown the answer or the solution.” Brown, Reedier, McDaniel, make it stick: The Science of Successful Learning The Promise of the First Two Minutes of Class […]
Openers and Closers When I was first creating Organized Binder the first aspect that coalesced was the Weekly Lifeline. It became clear to me that my students would be more successful if I provided a clear starting and ending routine that both maximized class time for teaching and learning while giving my students daily practice […]
I received an email this morning that read, “The most current research indicates that staff, family, and student social and emotional wellness; equity in education; and learning/academic recovery should be our highest priorities as we transition back to learning recovery and acceleration (remediate “learning loss”).” I agree wholeheartedly but I would like to embellish this […]
As an industry we invest a significant amount of funding to facilitate and assess the teaching of content. As teachers, we deliver content and students are tested on how much they know. That is the paradigm, right? As I posed in this article, we know that when students develop noncognitive skills and executive functions they […]
There is an interesting paradox of time in education. We know that when students develop noncognitive skills and executive functions they more successfully engage with and learn the content we are teaching. Yet, as teachers, we are hired to teach the content of our courses and have very little time for anything else. Or do […]
Mitigating Learning Loss I shared in a recent post that Mo Willems, author and artist of children’s classics like “Don’t Let The Pigeon Drive The Bus” and “Knuffle Bunny”, is a family favorite. A few days ago while reading “Can I Play Too” with my youngest daughter I was struck by the parallel between the […]
