Dear colleagues, Early this past fall, I decided to do something funny with my students. We had just finished the warm-up in first hour, and someone had a great share, and I said: “All right students, here’s the deal. You know how Mr. Simmons [our principal] often sits in on classes for a few minutes? […]
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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
Any Thoughtful, Informed Response to AI = Better Than a Mindless One
Dear colleague, Last Friday’s “Let’s Talk AI” workshop was a real treat. You can access the recording and chat log right here, still at pay-what-you-want pricing. Thank you for supporting my work in this way. Before I discuss one of my chief takeaways and a follow-up opportunity, let me quickly plug the Secondary Educator Summit […]
A Change We Didn’t Choose
Dear colleague, When I started the research for The Will to Learn 10+ years ago, I didn’t know how important it would be. I mean, I knew — student motivation multiplies a given lesson’s impact like nothing else — but I didn’t know how critical an issue student motivation would become in the 2020s. First, […]
The Best AI Thought Pieces I’ve Encountered Recently
Dear colleagues, These are the AI-related thought pieces I have found valuable in the past month or so. The first one is good for either listening or viewing. It’s called “How Will AI Change Education?” There are a million low-quality thought pieces on this topic, but what I respect about this video is that he […]
All Right, Fine: Let’s Talk About It
Dear colleague, The most notable through line in my professional journey this year has been wrestling with the AI boogeyman. Every school year is a journey, no matter what. But this year my journey has been more intense and existential than any I can remember. Suffice it to say, I’ve come a long way since […]
AMA Livestream re: Blogging, Writing, Speaking (Blog Birthday 2025)
Dear colleague, During the Ask Me Anything (AMA) livestream that took place on May 3, 2025, I answered the following submitted questions: If you’d like to listen, you can access the replay here! DSJR
Everest Statements in Elementary School?
Dear colleague, Recently, one of our colleagues in Saudi Arabia wrote in with the following question: I appreciate that These 6 Things is aimed at [secondary] teachers, but so much of it applies to [elementary] too! Do you have any examples of Everest Statements made by Elementary Teachers that you could share? I haven’t got […]
Two (of Many) Things I’m (Intentionally) Not Good At
Dear colleague, I was discussing teacher stress and burnout the other day with some educationally minded folks, and we arrived at an insight I haven’t written about in awhile. The insight is this: though the teaching workload today is unambiguously stressful and overloaded, much of that stress and overload could be mitigated if we gave […]
Learning Takes Drafts: 13 Years of DSJ (Blog Birthday 🥳)
Dear colleague, 13 years ago I wrote the first article on this blog, which, at the time, was called Teaching the Core. Since then, I’ve written 1,071 blog articles, created 100s of videos, produced half a dozen courses, spoken all around the country and the world, and published two major books that articulate my philosophy […]
Three Levels of MGCs
Dear colleague, Recently, I wrote about the MGC inflection point. I’ve been able to study and work through this thanks to a few Will to Learn partnerships* I’ve made with schools this school year. Another fruit of those partnerships is clarity on what I call the Three Levels of MGCs. As you progress through the […]
What If Students Get Too Personal?
Dear colleague, A fellow teacher wrote in to me some time ago with the following dilemma: My strongest suit is connecting with my students, on an academic level as well as a personal level. My students trust me and come to me with personal problems regularly as they sense that I care about them. I’ve […]
The MGC Inflection Point
Dear colleague, This year I’ve worked with several partner schools to help The Will to Learn take root in their schools. In each one, there’s this inflection point that happens where folks have tried Moments of Genuine Connection (MGCs) for a bit — printed their rosters, started keeping track, grappled with the exhaustion — and […]
Every Student Known
Dear colleague, For the past year and a half, folks on my building leadership team have been giving us faculty members a chance to think about, experiment with, and get consistent with tracking attempted moments of genuine connection (MGCs). That might seem crazy — I mean, how do you spend 1.5 years exploring a strategy […]
How to Woodenize Working Memory (Woodenization Example)
Dear colleague, As I unpack in the first module of the Principles of Learning Course (and a bit in this YouTube video), one of the reasons learning is hard is because working memory is a limited resource. Working memory is whatever we’re thinking about at the moment. It’s what we think with. Hopefully, your working […]
Are Worksheets Bad?
Dear colleague, It’s common enough to hear a well-meaning teacher use language like this: In one sense, I get it. When a class period becomes nothing more than a teacher distributing worksheet after worksheet to keep kids busy, that class is falling short of its potential. Our job is to teach, not to chuck worksheets […]
What’s a Distraction? (Woodenization Example)
Dear colleague, What’s a distraction? This is actually a great question to spend 10-15 minutes of class time on at least once per school year. Follow these basic steps to maximize the amount of learning the question produces. Step 1. Start with having your students write about the question. Use prompts like this: Prompts like […]