Doug Lemov's field notes

Reflections on teaching, literacy, coaching, and practice.

12.11.15 “He Worked it Out!”: Emilie Tarraf’s Culture of Error (Video)

We’re talking Check for Understanding at our Engaging Academics workshop in Albany this morning- specifically how great teachers normalize growth mindset–struggling forward, errors and all–and make that seem like the most normal thing in the world.  This is critically important because if students try to hide their mistakes from their teachers it is 10x harder to…


09.22.15 Tales of a Positive Outlier, Part 3: Nicole Willey’s Show Call (Video)

If you’ve seen the first two clips I’ve shared from Nicole Willey’s classroom at Leadership Prep Ocean Hill Elementary Academy, you’ll be thrilled to know there’s still more to come– and that the clip I’m sharing today might just be the most replicable of the batch. Nicole’s Check for Understanding was pretty killer. Her positive touch was…