In my book These 6 Things: How to Focus Your Teaching on What Matters Most (2018), I introduced the Five Key Beliefs as a methodology for analyzing and doing something about student motivation problems. Due to the need to treat more than just the Five Key Beliefs in the book (after all, they are just […]
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This School Year, Try the Minimalist Approach to Student Motivation
Since The Will to Learn came out, I’ve worked with dozens of faculties and teacher groups on the material and continued to practice its ideas and strategies in my own classroom. What I’ve found is that even the short list of 10 strategies I write about can be pretty overwhelming. It’s too much to focus […]
A Complete Classroom Management Guide for an Enjoyable and Productive Learning Environment
Classroom management — that is, creating an environment in which student behaviors are conducive to enjoyable and productive learning — is the first hurdle a teacher must cross in order to implement the approach to teaching I describe in These 6 Things and The Will to Learn. If a class is unruly or unsafe, it […]
Everything You Need (and Nothing You Don’t) to Start the 2024-2025 School Year Well
Dear colleague, When I was a brand-new teacher in Baltimore County, the district happened to bring Dr. Harry Wong himself to teach us about the First Days of School. It was just-in-time PD that gave me some insight into what I needed to bring to my work in the first days of school. The trouble […]
DSJR is Back: Here’s What You Can Expect for Back-to-School Season
Dear colleague, How in the world are ya!? I appreciated my month off from posting blog articles, as it allowed me to: Let’s talk about those new articles. The biggest problem I’ve had in the past with back-to-school season is that folks around the US and the world start school at different times, ranging roughly […]