During a speaking engagement in New York several weeks ago, I met a mother and a daughter who both teach in the district I was working with. I had goosebumps while I was talking with them — two generations of the same household, enthusiastically serving in the same district. The image of these two women […]
Two Kinds of Curiosity and the One that Science Supports
I’ve mentioned before that there are two kinds of curiosity: fruitful and fruitless. Fruitful curiosity Fruitful curiosity is that which we efficiently act upon as we’re studying a subject. In my survey world history course, I’m reading about the five pillars of Islam in our World History textbook, and it mentions the hajj to Mecca, so […]
Future You Wants You To Do Two Things
I was driving home from a speaking engagement a few weeks ago in central New York — and thank you to the fine folks of Broadalbin-Perth CSD for having me, as it was a true pleasure — when I saw a billboard for the lottery. It said, in large bold print: “FUTURE YOU WANTS YOU […]
The 300-Word Guide to Pop-Up Debate
Notes from Dave: I treat pop-up debate extensively in Chapter 4 of These 6 Things: How to Focus Your Teaching on What Matters Most. Teachers around the world tell me it’s one of their favorite chapters on argument in any source. Pick up your copy today! Pop-up Debate is a method for managing and facilitating in-class debates; […]
How to Do Hard Things
The problem with our classes, from a motivational standpoint, is they’ve been surpassed by video games. Video games, as I laid out in my argument last week, are great at making players want to spend the time/effort/frustration costs of mastery; my world history class, less so. The solution, however, isn’t to “gamify” my class; rather, it’s to teach our students, […]