The “Stack Audit” is one of my favorite tools teachers and leaders can use to study and learn from their work with students. I describe it more fully here but the gist of it is: You gather as many examples as you can of a specific type of work (the Do Nows or Exit Tickets given…
I read a fair number of posts and social media comments bemoaning how X or Y is ‘destroying kids’ love of learning’ or ‘destroying their curiosity’ or something similar. When I read them I wonder what data the writers have to support the assertion that kids love learning less or are less curious. Than when? How…
The TLAC team has been thinking a lot lately about combinations of techniques. What are the techniques that work well in synergy? What are the peanut butter-and-jelly, pairings of techniques where the melding of flavors makes the whole more than the sum of the parts? Why do such pairings and groupings work so well? What’s the…
Helen Howell is English AST and Lead Teacher for Literacy at The Radclyffe School in Oldham, Manchester, UK, where the school has recently moved from Ofsted’s ‘requires improvement’ rating to ‘outstanding’ and enjoyed their best ever English results in 2016. As a result of their recent focus on using academic language, building oracy and grammar skills…
My colleague Dan Cotton has been thinking, and writing about relationships in the classroom. In previous posts he looked at how a teacher’s instructional competence can directly effect his or her capacity to build trust with students and the manner in which fostering genuine achievement was critical to all enduring teacher-student relationships. In his third and…