I’m not really sure where to start in talking about the clip I’m going to share in this post. It’s pretty amazing. It’s of Eric Snider, who teachers English at Achievement First Bushwick Middle School and who is a TLAC Fellow. It’s important because it shows how Eric installs a routine in his classroom. One of…
This morning we watched two great clips of first grade teacher Jennifer Crucetti Cold Calling her first graders on the second day of school at Abram Lansing Elementary in Cohoes, NY. Cold Call, as you may know, is a hugely powerful tool in the classroom when it’s a normal and positive part of the lives of…
One of the things that people tell us they value most in our workshops is practice—the chance to rehearse and refine elements of your teaching technique in the safety and camaraderie of colleagues rather than in front of your third period math class. However, not everyone has the opportunity to practice with peers as often as…
I’m on my way back from New Zealand today. In the course of doing some training down there for NZ Rugby coaches, I met a music teacher from the South Island named Sam Hadfield. He’d been experimenting with a few carefully chosen techniques—Cold Call, No Opt Out, Right is Right—in his classroom with generally positive…
One of our most useful clips of the Cold Call technique is this short-but-super clip of Alex Timoll at Excellence Boys Charter School in Bed Stuy Brooklyn. There are a ton of things you could take away from it, and from Alex’s teaching generally, but there are three especially useful lessons i think that every teacher…