In January of this year, “billionaire buddies” Warren Buffett and Bill Gates held a Q&A session at Columbia University. At the 5:08 mark, the moderator asks, “What quality has been most important for you?” They both answered with the same thing: curiosity. Here is how Gates defines curiosity in the interview: “You try and predict […]
Genuine Encouragement
If you’re like me, seasons of discouragement come along at some point in a school year. We get tired, we get behind, we get frustrated, we experience setbacks. These things accrue, and it becomes easier and easier to hit the snooze button. Interestingly, I find that in these situations the way up is often down. [1] […]
As Little Flash as Possible
If you look at a sampling of my blog posts over the years (here’s an organized list), you’ll notice that I went through a phase of believing that every blog post needed an image (here are some examples). Eventually, I gave the practice up, deciding to stop spending time — small though it was — on making title images. […]
The Three Layers of Outperforming Classrooms
The best kinds of classes can be built by teachers who attend to three foundational layers. First, the layer too often taken for granted: the key beliefs that underlie behavior and effort. Specifically, these teachers understand the four components of teacher credibility — trust, competence, dynamism, and immediacy — knowing both how to build these […]
Don’t Forget the Table
If learning is a feast, then noncognitive factors are the table. This is reflected in the Foundations Framework that I use in my own classroom and in the professional development workshops I’ve led around the country. (See Figure 1, below.) The literature on noncognitive factors can be pretty overwhelming. Having read a fair amount of it, I […]