Like it or not, to most schools, achievement means strong performance on state tests. Some claim to value life preparation and social-emotional growth over test scores, but that never plays well in the annual newspaper articles. What if you could have it all? What if you could rethink success and have happy, healthy, excited students […]
Imagine teaching a short lesson to introduce students to the concept of a preposition: Prior to the lesson, on the whiteboard, write the same sentence four times: The book is _____ the desk. Stand by a desk and hold up a book, asking students to identify the desk and the book. “These are two things, or […]
At ASCD 2016 in Atlanta, Georgia, people are talking about: We’re enjoying the many great conversations with old friends and new. Pedro Noguera: “How do we teach teachers to make their classrooms come to life?” “Good teaching takes art and skill.” “Equity is the issue of our times.” Carol Dweck: “Growth mindset isn’t just […]
At its core, problem-based learning is an approach that offers students an authentic, open-ended, complex problem to solve, which requires applying curricular content. While there are many definitions of project- and problem-based learning, let me define them for the purpose of this blogpost. A “project” does not necessarily have to be open-ended; there is often […]
Albert Einstein is credited with saying, “I never teach my pupils; I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they learn.” This speaks of the shift from teacher as the purveyor of information to that of an architect of a complex environment in which students learn; a shift from “teacher as ferry” to “teacher […]