Author: Matt
-
Why Students Brag About Not Doing Work (And What We Can Do About It)
We’ve all probably heard it. “I didn’t even study for this, and I still got a B…” “I wrote this entire thing an hour before class. I don’t even know what is in it…” “I haven’t’ read a book all year. I just look at SparkNotes, and I still pass everything…” The sounds of secondary…
-
The Game-Changing Teaching Tool That Is the Micro Conference
Nearly every teacher I know likes the idea of conferencing with students. When we talk one-on-one with students we can clarify messages, correct misconceptions, build relationships, cultivate key beliefs, and give the students a platform to be heard. Where the issues with conferencing often come in are in the logistics, which can be next to impossible…
-
The Magic That Happens When Students Set Their Own Learning Goals
“We have to do this work with the students, and not for the students.” -Patty McGee I’m not proud of it, but I have seen all eight of the Fast and Furious movies. I have no defense except that I have a soft spot for absurdist early 2000s bubble-gum action movies that involve Vin Diesel…
-
Wise Interventions: The Most Important Educational Concept You’ve Probably Never Heard Of (And How to Use It to Help Your Most Vulnerable Students)
Wise Intervention: a brief, timely action that significantly improves student achievement and/or closes performance gaps based on race and gender. In Helping Children Succeed (the link has an annotated pdf of the whole wonderful book!), Paul Tough tells the story of a group of Stanford researchers–Geoffrey Cohen, Gregory Walton, and David Yeager–who decided to investigate how we can best…
-
What Should We Do With the Five Paragraph Essay?
“What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.” -Samuel Johnson As a writing teacher, one of the most common questions I’m asked is how do I handle the five-paragraph essay. If I’m being honest, until relatively recently, I tried my best to avoid this question, as discussion of the five-paragraph essay is…
-
That One Big Thing I Got From These Six Things
A month ago I identified six books that I simply have to read this summer. Since that point I’ve read 5 of 6 (Circe; There, There, These Six Things, Grit, andThey Say, I Say, ), and I’m happy to report that all five have absolutely lived up to my expectations. Out of the five though, Dave…
-
Why I Don’t Grade Anything Until October
While they feel inextricably linked with school, grades are actually a relatively new invention, with the first known grades appearing at Yale in 1785 and widespread grade usage (and the current A through F system) only beginning a little over 100 years ago. While it is hard to imagine a time before report cards, that was…
-
An Argument for More Empathy in the Classroom
I had a different entry planned for my return to writing posts today, but this weekend I went to see the new Mr. Rogers documentary Won’t You Be My Neighbor? and walked out glowing with inspiration. Beyond being a well-constructed film following the life and times of a fascinating man, the main theme of Won’t You…
-
Time = Importance
I occasionally teach a film elective, and when I do, I find that the transition from watching movies as a viewer to watching them from a film perspective is a really hard one for a lot of students. In order to help them in their transition, I have found that giving students this one simple…
-
The Power of Real Reflection
This is my third year as a gardener. The first was trial and a lot of error. The second was passable. But this year, my garden is pacing nearly a month ahead of last year, despite a colder than average spring. The reason for my increase in yields and growth? Fall preparation. In my first…
Matthew M. Johnson 