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After years of coaching and working with teachers, there are two things I consistently encounter that cause imbalance in the classroom and beyond. #1 Teacher Talk is a Barrier to Connection In previous posts, I’ve focused on this […]
End-of-the-year assessments can be anxiety-producing events for students. These final assessments attempt to cover massive amounts of information and do not allow students the opportunity to communicate what they know in a way that works for them. Unlike […]
How does a teacher’s relationship with their students impact their energy levels or exhaustion? How can a teacher build strong relationships with their students to make this work more enjoyable and rewarding? When I began my research study […]
Teaching has always been a demanding profession, but this school year takes the cake! Teachers are navigating substitute teacher shortages, COVID protocols, and record numbers of absent students in addition to the normal demands of this job. It […]
What do teachers find mentally stimulating about their work? What causes teachers to invest their mental energy and time resources in a task? What aspects of a teacher’s work lead them to engage in problem-solving, critical thinking, and […]
While coaching teachers this month, several expressed a desire to include review and practice activities in their station rotation lessons to help students prepare for end-of-the-semester assessments. Helping students review for an exam often takes the form of […]
In our book UDL and Blended Learning, Dr. Katie Novak and I encourage teachers to work toward firm, often standards-aligned, goals. We also stress the importance of providing students with flexible means. All students can make progress toward […]
Metacognition is defined as thinking about one’s thinking or learning. More formally, “metacognition was originally referred to as the knowledge about and the regulation of one’s cognitive activities in learning processes” (Veenman, Van Hout-Wolters, & Afflerbach, 2006, p.3). The ability to think […]
Since I published “Stop Taking Grading Home,” I’ve had a ton of teachers ask me how I am able to give feedback on Google Docs so quickly. I give real-time feedback to ~8 students in a 25-minute station. […]
At the start of this year, I wrote a blog titled “Grading for Mastery and Redesigning My Gradebook,” which detailed my desire to rethink assessment in my classroom. I was tired of students always asking me about points […]