Doug Lemov's field notes

Reflections on teaching, literacy, coaching, and practice.

05.31.23 Simple Tools Ben Katcher Uses To Keep The Big Group on Task (So He Can Work With a Small Group)

  Watered down instruction is a problem in American classrooms. TNTP’s 2018 white paper, The Opportunity Myth describes the scope of this problem. The average student “spent more than 500 hours per school year on assignments that weren’t appropriate for their grade and with instruction that didn’t ask enough of them—the equivalent of six months of wasted class time…


05.23.18 Narrating Positive Behavior: Talking To Students vs Talking About Students

  Recently I visited a school that used a lot of Narrate the Positive. Class would start. At the beginning of class a typical teacher would say, “Please take two minutes to answer question #1 in writing. Go!”  As kids started working the teacher would say something like. “Charles has pencil to paper. Anjulina is getting…