To increase the odds that our students will follow through on their goals, evidence suggests that mental contrasting and implementation intentions help a lot. Here’s how to use it in just four steps: Have students set a goal. I’m going to read three books this semester. I’m going to use every document in my next DBQ […]
Archives for June 2017
Drafts of Learning
Over the summer, my Advanced Placement World History students are assigned to learn a set of dates and what those dates mean. That assignment has evolved (and simplified) with each year I’ve given it, but it’s purpose is always the same: I want my students to have an initial, very rough draft of world history […]
Freedom through Restriction
Which is freer: to check your social media accounts any time you feel like it, or to do so at a single, designated time each day, and with a timer set to ten minutes or less? to give yourself an unlimited amount of time to read the professional development books on your shelf, or to […]
A Dangerous Assumption
When we assume a person understands us, has learned something, or has otherwise changed just because we told them something, taught them something, covered something in a meeting — that’s First Degree Assumicide. Teachers, administrators, parents, and students all fall prey to this dangerous assumption. Example 1: “Class, stop with the lower-cased first person pronoun! We’ve […]
Setting a Summer Reading Project
In my last post, I suggested that there’s a time to take on no new reading at all, instead setting one’s course for the full exploration of a single book. I did this five years ago or so with Mike Schmoker’s Focus, and much of the subsequent blogging and teaching I’ve done (including the development of […]