Category: Uncategorized
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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How to Cultivate Strong Student Writing Identities
This weekend a friend of mine introduced me to a writer who focuses on habits and decision making named James Clear. He isn’t exactly an education writer, but his posts are in many ways completely about education, as they are about how we learn, evolve, and view the world. There was one post in particular…
Matthew M. Johnson 