A truth that keeps me teaching sounds a bit paradoxical. It has two propositions: It has other forms, too — like this: Holding these two ideas in your will and your mind at the same time — your impotence and your power — is a hard holding to learn. But few dualities have left me […]
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Smallies v. Biggies
To me, the most powerful thing you can do to improve student effort is teach them, very clearly and well, what good effort looks like. And to really get the Effort belief zinging, you ought to do this not just for some things, but for all things…at least, all the things that you expect your […]
The Simple Slide I Use to Structure My Lessons
For the past few years, I’ve come to plan my lessons out very simply: beginning, middles, end. In my new book, I represent this idea using the following graphic: But in my day-to-day teaching, it actually looks like this: (Note: in general classes, the “Homework” piece is called “Walk Away.”) Now like any tool, the […]
A Simple Method for Checking Student Vocab Comprehension During Tests
During our first test of the semester this year, I asked my students to do something new. I told my students that I’d be walking around to take a look at their lists and that they would give me information on how to best support them in the next unit. How it turned out I […]
To Spot AI, You’ve Gotta Know Stuff
I came across this explainer article the other day regarding how to spot text that’s been written by ChatGPT. It’s got smart design that pinpoints the exact spots in GPT-generated texts that give away their authorship (screenshot below). After reading the article from my own perspective as a high school teacher wanting to help students […]