The array of professional development resources available to teachers today is as overwhelming as it is incoherent. Every month, dozens of books and hundreds of articles and thousands of tweets are published. Yet for most of us, this overabundance is more a source of stress or apathy than it is a source of professional growth. This […]
Instruction
Triple Responsibility: Its Problems and Imperatives
John Wooden, who, even at 94, referred to his career as that of a teacher rather than a coach, taught his “students” many things, but the one I’d like to examine today is the concept of double responsibility. From Coach Wooden’s Pyramid of Success: Building Blocks for a Better Life: I… talked to my players about […]
Learning is ______________: Here’s Why How You Complete that Sentence Matters
Here’s a multiple choice question that can really teach us something: Learning is _____________. A) when I take in new information. B) about remembering, using, and ultimately understanding information. C) difficult but important. D) about improving as a person and widening my perspective. E) a process that takes place every day of our lives. F) not […]
How to Acquire a Distant or Super Famous Mentor
The most powerful kinds of mentorships are the ones where the mentee learns how the mentor thinks, essentially internalizing the mentor’s mind. In such arrangements, the mentor gives concerted effort and inquiry, and the mentee gains mental models. These models, be they for teaching, problem-solving, student motivation, literacy, or otherwise, are precious because they would likely not […]
The Growing Dragon of Student Anxiety & Swords for Fighting It
When Connie (not her real name) ran out of my classroom last spring, tears streaming down her face, I felt like a horrible idiot. On the first day of school, she had voluntarily identified herself as being anxious about public speaking on her index card, but through a simple progression from Think-Pair-Share experiences to Pop-Up Discussions and Debates, […]