We spent some of last week watching footage of teachers from Partnership for Inner City Education– a group of Catholic schools in NYC whose mission is to develop outstanding schools that serve low-income students. We love their work generally- what’s not to love about insightful, mission-driven people making every school a little better every day- so we…
A topic I’ve been thinking about as I’ve watched coaches over the past couple of months is something I call ‘means of participation.’ It’s relevant during questioning. I’ve written about if for classroom teachers here. But it’s relevant for coaches too- questioning is important in building decision-making and reinforcing knowledge through recall practice…
Great teachers are always seeking to make their classrooms as rigorous as possible. Over the next three days, I’ll be sharing thoughts about three ‘common opportunities’ –things I see in place when I observe great classrooms that can often make a big difference—quickly—in good ones. Common Opportunity #1: Improve the rigor of your classrooms by defining…
Cold Call, as you probably know if you read this blog regularly, is one of my favorite techniques– meaning that it’s one of the techniques that has the greatest potential to increase the rigor and engagement in a classroom. I also love that it can be used by almost any teacher, and in concert…
A couple of weeks ago I wrote a series of posts about my visit to London’s Michaela School. I wrote about: their marking policy and how it could in some cases reduce teacher workload; the power of the school’s emphasis on gratitude; and the decisions we all get to make on whether to judge or ‘steal’ from…