Note: I expanded the arguments in the article below and provided practical teaching applications into a full chapter of my book These 6 Things: How to Focus Your Teaching on the Work that Matters Most. When you buy a copy, you directly support my work as a thinker and writer. -DSJR In the introduction to Teaching the […]
An Expectancy-Value Pop-Up Debate (Valued Within Exercise)
This is a simple pop-up debate activity meant to: support the development of expectancy-value academic mindsets reinvigorate pop-up debates if/when they become stale deepen students’ understanding of Fulkersonian argument (i.e., collaborative, argumentative discussion) give students a chance to practice Palmer’s PVLEGS Also, it doesn’t need to take long (doable in 20 minutes for a 30-student class), as there is […]
A Single-Moding Approach to Teacher Productivity
Some people I respect run a community/training site for online entrepreneurs called Fizzle, and in Fizzle there’s this course called Productivity Essentials [1]. In the course, a key idea is that there are two required modes for online entrepreneurs: CEO Mode and Worker Bee mode. In the video below, Chase Reeves lays these out in his typical winsome […]
Perfectionism Behind, Improvementism Ahead
In the New Year, new semester, new school year, the impulse to believe that things can be perfect is real but invisible. Of course I don’t think I can be perfect, the savvy person says. That would be naive. But our reaction to the inevitable setbacks — the abandoned resolutions, the failed lessons, the kids we can’t […]
How Doug Stark Maintains Boundaries with a Large English Language Arts Teaching Load
Several weeks ago, I wrote “Constraints Make Us Better.” In that post, I mentioned the following: Down the hallway from me, my colleague Doug Stark (author of the Mechanics Instruction that Sticks books) has for years made a point to leave school by 3:30pm (at the latest) each day in order to pick his children […]