Doug Lemov's field notes

Reflections on teaching, literacy, coaching, and practice.

01.04.19 Building Mental Engagement Among Athletes Through Questioning

Coaches love to ask questions to help their athletes understand the decisions they must make during performance. This is especially true in group invasion games like soccer (football), rugby, basketball and hockey–games that require an especially high degree of coordination and shared decision-making. One potential problem with asking questions of athletes is making sure that the…


12.11.18 Studying Theme and Variation with TNTP

Theme and Variation both matter.   Dan Cotton leads our team’s collaboration with TNTP. I asked him to compile a short post about the most recent session. Earlier this year, Doug wrote about our conversation with a set of colleagues from TNTP and the importance of de-silo-fication when designing training. During a more recent conversation we…


11.28.18 Learn Like A Champion–Torquay Academy’s Students Are In-The-Loop On TLAC

    One of the highlights of my trip to the UK last June was visiting Torquay Academy in Devon- not just because it’s a really outstanding school where happy kids are given the gift of orderly school and rich, challenging instruction but–epiphany alert–because when teachers used techniques like Wait Time and Cold Call they were…


11.28.18 A Road Map for Live Coaching: Postcard from Freedom Prep

  This year Darryl Williams, Team TLAC’s Senior Fellow for School Leadership, has been providing in-depth support to Freedom Prep, a network of schools in Memphis. During a recent visit, Darryl and John Costello, video ace at team TLAC, supported leaders by visiting classrooms and studying student work. One of the moments John captured was this…