Teaching Simplified.
Evidence-based strategies that actually work in real classrooms, from a teacher who’s still in the trenches.
“Your work has single-handedly been the biggest influence in my pedagogy… I’m literally using things I learned from you every single day!” — Ashley Y., Instructional Coach & Teacher in California
“In you, I’ve found a voice that speaks to both my calling and my professional practice.” — Caleb N., ELA Teacher in Denver
“Your work is beautifully affecting students over here and saving this teacher her sanity!” —Rachel P, Early to Mid-career Teacher in Ohio
“If I could identify one resource that has guided my work over 37 years of teaching, it has been your blog posts, books, courses, and videos.” — Liz Fox, Recently Retired after 37 Years (34 as ELA Teacher, 3 as Instructional Coach)
“Students are getting comfortable doing what most of them didn’t want to do – really read, really write, and argue academically. One student went from saying ‘this is going to be bad – I’m terrible at public speaking’ to ‘look at me, all smart.'” — Jeanine F-G., St. John Neumann High School, Naples FL
“It’s rare to have someone who is actually still committed to being in the classroom writing/doing the PD… it’s amazing how just a few years out of the classroom makes folks start thinking that their ideas will work, when in reality they will not fly with real kids.” — Elle D., 25-Year Veteran Teacher
My schedule-friendly, all-online professional development courses are designed with busy educators in mind. Whole staff or district applications are available — email support@davestuartjr.com with your needs.
I speak and lead education workshops for a limited number of schools and organizations around the world each year.
My best-selling books, These 6 Things and The Will to Learn, have been read and cherished by secondary teachers around the world. My blog is read by tens of thousands of educators each month.
Writing and leading PD since 2012. Tools and services used in all 50 states and abroad. Over a million published words, over a thousand articles. Countless classroom success stories from teachers around the world.
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Dear colleague, There’s a common misconception amongst us teachers about how to develop Belonging in the classroom, and it’s this: at the start of the school year, you need to budget lots of time for things like icebreakers, get-to-know-you activities, and team-building exercises. Don’t rush into the curriculum, the thinking goes, until you develop that…
Continue Reading Lead With Competence and Belonging Will Follow
Dear colleagues, I came across this article from Jen Gonzalez recently where she makes the sound argument that asking students what they did over summer break can put students with sub-optimal summer vacations into a bad spot right out of the gate. Instead of only asking about break, Jen advocates for asking questions like the…
Dear colleague, Picture Sarah, a sophomore in your third-period class. She’s not disruptive, but she’s not engaged either. When you ask her why she should care about what you’re teaching, she shrugs and says, “I don’t know. For the grade, I guess?” Sarah’s not lazy or defiant. And if you asked what Stanford researcher Bill…
Continue Reading Value via Purpose: Tapping into a Nuclear Power Source of Student Motivation
Dear colleague, On pp. 127-129 of The Will to Learn, I unpack the full transcript of the following mini-sermon from Texas-based secondary math educator Caroline Ong. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCbNpnFga1U (The mini-sermon starts at about the 1:30 mark, but the whole 2.5-minute video is important for context.) In virtually every PD I facilitate on how to improve student…
Continue Reading The Compelling Math Mini-Sermons of Caroline Ong
Dear colleague, Toward the end of last school year as I was coming to grips with the student motivation apocalypse and the implications of AI for schooling today, one idea became clear and recurring: in this coming school year, great teachers and schools will be those mindful of the Value belief. (You can read a…
Dear colleague, My oldest asynchronous course, Teaching with Articles, came out before my two books, These 6 Things and The Will to Learn. When I was making it, I was still learning all the things those books contain. And it was so long ago that, honestly, most of the time I forget it exists. But…