Doug Lemov's field notes

Read this story on Michael Goldstein’s recommendation. https://www.bostonglobe.com/magazine/2019/08/07/somerville-won-million-open-new-high-school-and-went-downhill-from-there/MP7qyc7EsBY8SbNl2qdz1M/story.html (Rule of thumb: If Mike says it’s good, read it.)The article describes founder of a proposed new school in Somerville where kids would learn through projects that they designed and would learn what they wanted. It got voted down. The article says, “The plan pulls from best practices…

I’m writing this post–at least its first draft–at a drafting table I’ve just put in my office. The desktop slopes steeply–too steeply for my laptop–and that’s the point. Standing here I can’t check email or see ‘what’s up’ in the world via the internet, which I usually justify on the grounds of researching something. I’m forced…

John Costello is Team TLAC’s lead video editor. He recently cut a gem of a clip of Matthew Gray about which he is sharing a series of reflections. John writes: Last December, Matthew Gray and Josh Goodrich from OASIS Academy Southbank joined us for our first Check for Understanding workshop in London. Afterwards, having had several…

Jennifer Snodgrass is Director of Achievement at McAuliffe International School, an IB school within Denver Public Schools that works to offer the most rigorous learning environment possible. I first met Jennifer when she agreed to pilot and give us feedback on our knowledge-based Reading Curriculum. Her feedback was consistently wise and insightful and so when she…

I had the pleasure of meeting music teacher Stephanie Kelln at one of our recent workshops. She hails from Colorado, teaches at Centennial Elementary in Evans, and approached meat one of the breaks to ask about using TLAC techniques in the Music classroom. My answer wasn’t great honestly, but hers–a blog post about how she used…