Dave Stuart Jr.

The other day, I shared a video with my ninth graders made by a Michigan high school teacher and author Chase Mielke. Chase had sent the video to me a week or so before, and I thought it connected well with a pair of burning questions my students and I had been pursuing of late: […]

In a 2020 study published in Early Childhood Research Quarterly, researchers from Temple University share an interesting finding: in a group of preschool and kindergarten classes, the complexity of teachers’ language during morning message and small groups had a significant relationship to students’ vocabulary development. “Together,” the researchers write, “the results imply that complex syntax […]

Some years ago, I had the chance to take the Scholastic Reading Inventory test that my students take to determine their Lexile scores, which in turn gives us a rough sense of what their reading “grade level” is. You take the test on a computer, and it’s dynamic — so as you answer questions correctly, […]

Educators around the world have taken up a simple, high-leverage habit: moments of genuine connection. Armed with clipboards and simple class rosters, these folks try to engage each of their students in 30-90 second interactions. The goal is simple: communicate to the child that they are valued, known, and respected. “Rubi, it’s good to see […]

You’re a good teacher, so it’s probable that you do some kind of goal-setting with your students. If you’re super sharp, you might even use the WOOP method developed by Gabrielle Oettingen. When goals or plans are vague, they don’t work well. Vague goals anesthetize the goal-setter. “Yeah, I’m paying more attention to school,” the […]

The next time you walk away from a negative conversation, ask yourself: What benefit came from that? These are the kinds of conversations I’m talking about: “So-and-so Teacher can’t manage his classroom. Oh my goodness.” “So-and-so Administrator said this to me. Can you believe it?” “So-and-so Parent emailed for the tenth time today. Agh!” We […]

Identifying one’s principles is a good exercise. Here are some I hold that you might, too: All students have value as human beings. All students possess yet-to-be-tapped long-term flourishing potential. All students possess likable qualities. It’s good to know what you stand for, what you value. And, as I’ve written before, research suggests it’s helpful […]

Here’s a common motivational obstacle in the secondary classroom: because a given assignment or course isn’t aligned with a student’s future employment plans, the student decides that the work isn’t valuable. I’ve had parents communicate this belief, too. It sounds like: I’m going to be a welder, Mr. Stuart. History doesn’t matter for that job. […]

For our students to bring effort to the mastery work in our classes, they’ve got to believe that their effort is actually going to pay off. You and I are not so different. Why try if it won’t matter? Our students are asking, consciously or not: If I write, will I get better at writing? […]

Over a year ago, I posted an article summarizing the results of an odd experiment reported by Greg Walton, Geoffrey Cohen, David Cwir, and Steven Spencer in The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. As I summarized, the experiment went like this: Students in Group 1 read a report by a math major, and they […]

In my Advanced Placement World History: Modern course, I attach this page to the syllabus, and every month or so I have students read it. What’s interesting is how at the start of the year, students glaze over this thing with boredom. In theory, it is mundane to them. They’ve seen things like this before. […]

Of the factors that affect the quality of one’s teaching, I know of few as powerful as the teacher’s understanding of the content being taught. When we deeply know what we’re teaching — whether it’s language conventions or solving equations or phonemic awareness or how to shoot a basketball — we’re more likely to teach […]

A little bit ago, I posted an article with a video in it. A number of you wrote and said it helped, and I thank you for that. The video mentioned a second part, and I want to share the second part today. The question is: As we’re working to up our student motivation knowledge […]

In These 6 Things, I lay out an inside-out approach to student motivation that I think the research suggests. This approach hinges on five key beliefs, and I’ve written about them all over the blog, such as here, here, and here. If you’re already familiar with them, go ahead and look away from the screen […]

About twenty-two centuries ago, Greco-Roman philosopher Ptolemy argued in Almagest that the sun and the moon and the other heavenly bodies rotated around the Earth. This geocentric view remained predominant for 1,700 years until the Renaissance’s Nicolaus Copernicus argued for a sun-centered system. In the decades that followed, new-fangled “scientists” like Johannes Kepler and Galileo […]

If I came into your school or classroom with a magic wand and said, “Hey, when I wave this thing, every one of your students will do three things with perfect consistency,” what three things would you pick? What three thing do you wish all students would do — for their own good and for […]