Doug Lemov's field notes

Reflections on teaching, literacy, coaching, and practice.

03.20.20 Alex Barba’s Bio Class: An Example of a Synchronous Online Lesson

Over the past few days I’ve been trying to blog examples of how teachers are doing online education for their students. You can see some of those here and here, and some big picture guidance here. The examples I’ve shown so far have been ‘asynchronous’–meaning that teachers aren’t live with students but rather send them tasks…


02.05.20 TLAC Global: Two Great Videos from Chile

For the last couple of years we’ve been partnering with an organization in Chile called Aptus. They’ve taken TLAC materials and not only translated them but developed training and support systems to develop teachers throughout Chile. Recently they taped a few of their own champions to give teachers local examples to study and happily they sent…


12.19.19 How Sadie McCleary Manages Student Participation (Video)

Happy Holidays, friends. I give you the gift of outstanding video to send you off into your winter break. This clip is of Sadie McCleary’s class. She’s a Chemistry teacher at Western Guilford High School in Greensboro, North Carolina. Generally this clip will inspire you- it’s such a beautiful example of how careful attention to building…


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…