Read and Coach

Most airport restrooms are nothing to write a blog about. However, I recently traveled through the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport and had a magical moment. With the push of a button, a sanitized toilet cover rolls around and covers the seats in their restrooms. That one moment of reprieve from the horror of an airport restroom was relatively inspirational. In our classrooms, we sometimes need a sanitized cover to scoot out and save us. A quick refresh on a day when we're a bit in the dumps...so to speak. Perhaps we need a lesson for a substitute and don't have the energy to create it. Or maybe we did not get a lesson ready because our plan period was taken by a meeting or event. There are a million different reasons why our plans might be in the toilet, and we all have moments when we need something magical to save the day.  Here are three things we can do to sanitize and refresh a crappy lesson day: Premade Choice Boards If we want an easy button lesson, try...

It's practically a right of passage in education to declare that a meeting should have been an email. Like most educators, I have been in meetings where that felt true. However, in 2024, the number of sent and received emails is projected to grow to 361.6 billion. We are inundated with information all the time. What we don't need...is another email.  Walk the halls of any school building and various other negative comments about meetings permeate the educational space. We apologize when we have to have meetings, we promise to keep meetings short because people are busy, and we cancel meetings because the weather is too warm, or too cold, or any other sundry non weather related reasons. All of this sounds logical and respectful to busy professionals who are tasked with too much, but it is a short-term fix. The solution is not to cancel or shorten meetings.  The solution is definitely not to send more emails.  The solution is to insist on better meetings.  There are a...

 Ask someone outside of education what high school classrooms look like and various visions of Ferris Bueller fill our heads: Apathetic students, out-of-touch teachers, and droning lectures with echos of "Bueller, Bueller." The film is a cult classic, but it doesn't paint an overly engaged classroom portrait. Lecture, or in educationese, direct instruction, is common and vital in many secondary classrooms. However, there's an awful lot of side-eye from professional developers when we talk about it. Why would we provide direct instruction when we could use inquiry or projects or cooperative learning? Direct instruction has become the black sheep of the teaching toolbox, but it doesn't have to be. Ferris Bueller style droning lectures that go on for hours are no longer in vogue. However, according to all the research, direct instruction is absolutely essential. As a matter of fact, a recent science study in Educational Research Review corroborates that a combinatio...

 It's January, which means there's a whiff of resolution in the air. Teachers are returning to classrooms with the tang of new beginnings guiding those "new year, new you" vision boards. So, in 2024, let's focus on maximum impact in whatever teaching ideas we are pinning on Pinterest. While schools and teaching situations may vary, when you sit down to do the math, most teachers are working a median of fifty hours a week and providing around 1200 hours of instruction to students each year. If we're planning things in the new year, they should be focused on easy solutions that increase student engagement during those hours. I submit for your consideration a No Hands Up Classroom in the new semester. According to Robert Marzano, who has spent decades researching the science behind effective instruction, mild pressure has a positive influence on students' learning because it prompts them to focus their attention. Thus, increasing response rates in classrooms...

 Hot chocolate is brewing, icicles are waiting in the wings for their moment to sparkle, and teachers are counting down the days to winter break. As the sun sets on 2023, I'm pondering the power of engaging our students proactively in 2024. When the weather turns colder, get a cozy December fire of learning blazing in your classroom with a reminder of some tried and true strategies. So, in honor of the generic ease of filling a post with an end-of-year countdown, here are my top four ways to put students at the center of the classroom when you return in 2024. Number 4: Standing and Thinking vs. Sitting and Getting The cult craze surrounding Peter Liljedahl is nothing new. In the last few years, he has inspired scores of teachers to fundamentally change the way they run math classrooms. While the education pendulum of ideas is always swinging, there are enduring ideas in Liljedahl's work that create classrooms where students are always responsible for thinking. First, a thinkin...

I love making choices about the perfect fall sweater to wear when the weather gets cold or which book on my TBR list I will pick up next. There is something absolutely delightful about having choices.  At least until they leave you in a stupor unable to function...  Like a family trying to decide where to go to dinner among the myriad restaurants available to them, too many choices can be a nightmare. It turns out that years of research have proven the difficulty of operating in an environment with too much choice. More choices rarely mean more freedom to choose appropriately. As I work in classrooms with adolescents and adults daily, this research has weighed on me. It is estimated that teachers make 1500 choices a day when considering instruction, curriculum, and the social-emotional needs of their students. That would create fatigue in even the most developed minds.  When we consider the decisions our students are asked to make each day, the added layer of underdevel...

 At 2.2 billion dollars, the Era's Tour is the highest-grossing tour ever. Why?  Because Taylor Swift is an absolute VIBE.  When she released her first song in 2006, did our Wildest Dreams tell us what we would eventually know All Too Well ? Taylor's energy crosses generational boundaries and has become a worldwide phenomenon. So, let's put on our Cardigan , get Fearless , and think about how we can all bring a little Swiftie energy to our classrooms this year. Robert Marzano, an educational researcher whose work spans decades, identified four areas of student engagement in his 2020 book, Improving Teacher Development and Evaluation . The areas of attention, energy, interest and intrigue, and personal motivation are all vital to moving from compliance to authentic engagement in our classrooms. Often at the secondary level, however, energy takes a backseat. In order to maintain a highly engaged classroom,  it is vital to consider the less sexy aspects of student eng...