After reading my recent article “People, not Passwords: Why You Need a Catchphrase or Two to Define Your Challenges This Fall“, one of our colleagues wrote in with a catchphrase she plans to lean on especially hard this school year. Julie Holderbaum is an English teacher at Minerva High School in Minerva, OH. For years, […]
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Let’s Make Teaching Better.
Dave Stuart Jr. is a husband, father, and high school teacher who writes about education. He reads extensively across the disciplines so that he can create uniquely satisfying professional development experiences for his colleagues around the world. His mission is to encourage and equip educators on the journey to long-term flourishing and professional excellence.
Professional development. (The good kind.)
If we’re going to make teaching better, we’ve got to improve professional development. I’m not the guru, but I have spent thousands of hours practicing and researching the art and science of educator-centered, high-impact PD. My hope with all of these is that they help.
And oh yeah: I’m still a teacher. I’ve never left the classroom. With 120 students on my roster each year, it’s impossible for me to detach theory from practice.
Online PD
My schedule-friendly, all-online professional development courses are designed with busy educators in mind. Whole staff or district applications are available — email support@davestuartjr.com with your needs.
In-Person PD
I speak and lead education workshops for a limited number of schools and organizations around the world each year.
Books + Blog
My best-selling book, These 6 Things, has been read and cherished by secondary teachers around the world. My blog is read by over 35,000 educators each month.
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The Latest from the Blog
Eight Tips for Using the *New* Editing Practice that Sticks
We have a new offering for teachers out this week — Editing Practice that Sticks. Click here to learn more. What follows is a list of eight tips that Doug Stark has written for guiding teachers to use these exercises to the greatest effect possible. Tip 1: Where possible, give your students a physical copy […]
A Million Words or Fewer: Deborah Bova’s Tried-and-True Method for Learning from Parents at the Start of Distance Learning
So you’re teaching from a distance and you’d like a non-invasive (dare I say pleasant?) method for gaining insight into your students, their homes, and their families. The best, most sensitive, most inviting method I know for this kind of thing is Deborah Bova’s Million Words activity. While this assignment’s utility is not limited to […]
A Middle School Science Team in New Mexico Rocks their Distance Learning Intro Video with Humor and Passion
A week ago, I gave a professional development segment on humanizing online learning spaces at the start of the year and building strong relationships from the get-go.* One simple start to such an effort is to create a teacher intro video that introduces students to who you are as their teacher. Take a look at […]
An Interview w/ Troy Hicks for the Writing Matters Podcast
In November 2019, I had the privilege of speaking with teacher-author Troy Hicks for a bit. That talk is below. I hope it encourages you.
How to Deal with Bad Feelings About Teaching This Year: A Self-Examination Protocol for Understanding (and Starting to Do Something About) Negative Teacher Emotions
Educators around the US this summer find themselves at the start of an alien August. Never before has this turning of the calendar included such tumultuous inner circumstances: fear, anger, division, bitterness, confusion, anxiousness, apathy… and, of course, some good bits too as we glimpse excitement and determination and enthusiasm and reunion. But it’s the […]
People, Not Passwords: Why You Need a Catchphrase or Two to Define Your Challenges This Fall
A quick story: last week I was speaking with a former student named Dylan. At one point, he asked me a question. “So, Mr. Stuart, will you be teaching students or usernames this fall?” What he meant with his wry smile was clear — at the time, our district hadn’t released its finalized back-to-school plan […]
A Three-Question Checklist for Building Stronger Relationships through Moments of Genuine Connection
As I’ve shared before, relationships are not the point of a teacher’s work, but they are one of teaching’s most fundamental currencies and most gratifying rewards. With more American schools than ever before launching into all-online starts, many teachers are concerned with just how to build strong relationships with students from afar. The good news […]
How to Use Mechanics Instruction that Sticks When Teaching Remotely: Thoughts from the Author, Doug Stark
As we approach the new school year, I have been thinking about how different things might be in the time of COVID-19. Will I be face-to-face with students in the classroom? If so, what will that look like? Will students have to sit six feet apart at all times? How are cooperative groups going to […]
How to Humanize Your Classroom or School When You’re Teaching from a Distance: Principles and Practices
The thing I miss most about the way school was before COVID is the human-ness of it all. Even though I’m pretty introverted, I miss the sounds of voices in the hallways, the smiles and waves and hellos and laughs and handshakes (remember those?). I miss the moments of electricity when you connect a young […]
How to Train Your Will to Want to Teach Again, Despite Everything: Principles and a Practice
You ever get those moments when it’s Summer 2020 and you kind of don’t want to teach anymore? Like you used to love teaching, be all about teaching, but then you experienced four months of turmoil and uncertainty and change and toxicity and pain and inequity and inefficiency and you’re like, “You know, I’m good. […]
How to Build Strong Relationships with Students if You’re Starting the Year Online: Principles and Practices
So you’re starting the school year as a distance educator and you have no idea how to build strong relationships with students you’ve never met in person. Before the hyperventilation kicks in, let’s center on a few grounding principles. Grounding Principle 1: You know things that work for building relationships in normal circumstances. First, you […]
Four Months In: How’s Your Will to Teach? (Plus Writing Intentions for Back to School)
It’s been four months since the first day of school closures in Michigan. Four months: 120 days; a third of a year. If you’re an educator in the United States, you probably find yourself in one of four scenarios right now: Your school or district has announced that you’ll be starting the year remotely. Your […]
A Beautiful, Simple Strategy for Improving Your School Culture
Recently, I wrote about how our inner worlds are customizable and that their makeup depends on the ways we use our time. Sometimes our time gets used in the ways we intend; but often, our time is hijacked by habits or interruptions. These interruptions can be good! But they can also be soul-sucking, especially when […]
Three Questions to Ask After Every Conversation, According to Author Kate Murphy
If you’d like to improve your relationships — at school, at home, in your neighborhood — and would like to mature emotionally and socially, listening is a non-negotiable discipline. It doesn’t get much glory — the million-view TED talks aren’t videos of people listening; the folks who get interviewed on the morning news aren’t being […]
Flexibility v. Consistency: The Paradox We’ve Got to Wrestle With
Flexibility makes room for individual differences: in needs, in motivations, in life circumstances, in backgrounds. Consistency makes sure we provide a guaranteed degree of quality, based on the best we know right now from research in teaching and learning. When you give teachers or students too much flexibility, you end up with a broad spectrum […]