Hey there, colleague! What follows is a mini-lesson that teaches secondary students how to learn more effectively. It’s part of a series, which you can access right here. When we teach students about learning, we empower them to work smarter and get better results for their effort. This is massively important for cultivating the five […]
Eight Lessons for Enhancing the Effort and Efficacy Beliefs
The Effort and Efficacy beliefs are intermingled. They dance together. I’ve tried representing these with the following flywheel diagram: The best way to begin to build the Effort and Efficacy beliefs in the hearts of our students, then, is to TEACH them what wise, strategic effort looks and feels like. In order to do that, […]
Credibility/Value Booster: Is that a Treasure Chest I See You Carrying?
It is. Recently, I was with a secondary faculty in Wisconsin, and after asking folks to craft their Everest sentences, I asked them to share with one another and answer, “So what? Why should students and families care about that Everest?” After this, I took volunteers. One of our colleagues shared that her Everest is […]
Simple Credibility Booster: Brian Sztabnik’s Sermonizing Ritual
What it is: For the last 2-3 minutes of class, high school ELA teacher Brian Sztabnik takes a crack at explaining the lasting significance of today’s lesson: how a centuries-old poem speaks to today; how a mechanically-sound sentence is a thing of simple beauty; how essay-writing teaches us to explore ideas. That’s it. What it […]
Dave’s Favorite Books on Aging for Educators 🥳
On the occasion of our birthday this year, my birthday buddies Justin Bieber and Lupita Nyong’o and I would like to offer you a list of our favorite books on getting older.* *All right, all right — so far, Lupita and Justin and I haven’t been able to actually meet, but that’s mostly a nationality […]