Last spring, a student said to me, “Well, I’m just not a map person. I’m not good at maps.” And I responded, “Well, Adam, flying unicorns are real.” To which Adam replied, “Um… what?” Growth mindset isn’t just a cute idea The preponderance of evidence supporting the brain’s malleability and the human ability to learn […]
Instruction
Lessons Learned from my Character Lab Teacher Innovation Grant Research Project
In May 2015, I was given what I felt was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: conducting action research about the intersection of public speaking and character growth with the support of the bright minds at Character Lab. Character Lab is an edu-research startup founded in part by Angela Duckworth; their website is my first recommendation for people […]
One Teacher’s Experiment with a Choice-Based Articles of the Week Assignment
Have you ever toyed with the idea of letting your students select the articles for Kelly Gallagher’s article of the week assignment? Stephanie Roederer, a teacher from Kentucky, has done a lot more than ponder it! Below, you’ll read an email Stephanie sent me a month or so ago. Her thought process, strategies, and results are so […]
Knowing Stuff is Inseparable from Literacy
The point of the Non-Freaked Out Approach to Producing Literate Humans (still working on that title; see Figure 1) is to make it easy for teachers to remember what we ought to become very, very good at. It helps us ask at the end of a hard day, “Did I help my students grow in […]
Some Tests Are Really Great for Students
Tests are easy to vilify in the USA today because there are too many bad ones and there are too many bogus high stakes attached to them. But this school year I’ve seen an extremely difficult test have a profoundly positive effect on its takers. First, my AP World History kids. Prior to this year, I hadn’t taught an advanced course of […]