Dear colleague, Here’s a quick Woodenization example for a couple of biggies in my classroom: After my students wrote their first SAQs of the school year, I worked hard to give them fast, simple feedback. Using our single-point rubrics (see pp. 184-185 in your copy of These 6 Things), I did my darnedest to have […]
Why “Work Harder” is a Terrible Plan
Dear colleague, Another thing my students often do when setting goals earlier on in the semester is say that their goal (or Wish in WOOP parlance) is to improve their grades and their Plan is to work harder. “Working harder,” I tell them, “is a terrific recipe for being anxious and getting down on yourself. […]
The Best Pop-Up Debate Prompt in my Repertoire (Valued Within Exercise)
Dear colleague, Today, let’s look at a Valued Within exercise that we can do via one of my favorite instructional activities: Pop-Up Debates. As you’ll recall, Valued Within exercises are any activity that has students figuring out why the work of learning is valuable to them. Unlike Mini-Sermons, in which creating and communicating Value messages […]
To Be Versus to Seem
Dear colleague, A friend sent me this article on AI recently, titled “Subcontracting Our Minds.” In case the title doesn’t make it obvious, the author is not an AI optimist. Though I found the author’s arguments compelling, what I loved most was his surfacing of an old Rousseau argument that it is necessary “to be […]
The Argument Game Works Well With Children (Valued Within Exercise)
Dear colleague, At a workshop I was leading in Texas a few months ago, a colleague asked me in the lunch line if I ever use the Five Key Beliefs methodology from The Will to Learn with my own children at home. The answer is yes, I do approach parenting with this lens, quite often. […]
