September is the time for diagnostic assessment.  It is good to know what your students already know and don’t.  But I wish the word...

It is good to stay current with the lingo.  The literature now refers the classroom environment as the “third teacher”.  Many teachers...

The latest buzz is collaboration.  If we can get our students to collaborate then both engagement and learning increases.  This is based...

Some teachers and I had an interesting discussion last week about how despite our best efforts at giving feedback, students weren’t so...

The word differentiation makes us think of individualized programming.  That always just seems like a lot of work.  But differentiation...

Teaching, it may surprise you, is very traditional.  We hold onto ideas for a long time.  Many teachers tend to teach the way they...

When we are thinking about differentiation and programming for special needs students, it is important to think about our own mindset. ...

Teaching is the only profession I know where every year is a “do-over”.  Every year we get a chance to reflect upon our practice, and...

Of course good things (like having kids collaborate in groups) often cause us to rethink a whole bunch of other things (like...

We know that student engagement is key.  Often we moan that “if only the students were more engaged…”.  But perhaps it is not the...

At our school, I do not insist that teachers post learning goals and success criteria.  The simple act of posting them does not ensure...

As I was wandering about the other day, avoiding the paperwork in my office, I ended up in a math class.  The students were working and...

We have been thinking about descriptive feedback and how it can be so powerful in moving students’ achievement.  We have been...

As the principal of a senior public school, it is good to really look at what is happening.  As the staff have worked together to develop...

There is no right way to teach.  If there were someone would have written the definitive book and anyone could do this job.  There are,...

The question came upabout how you get students on an IEP started in class.  You have given the assignment, you were clear in the...

The term “assessment for learning” (educational acronym AfL) was coined by Wiliam and Black in their 1998 article “Inside the Black Box”...

Many teachers I know are experimenting with giving more specific feedback and fewer marks.  It makes for some interesting thinking and a...

When we scaffold student learning we think about “gradual release of responsibility”, “guided learning”, “modelling” and “exemplars”....

I find the research around growth mindsets fascinating.  I catch myself praising students for intelligence now and switch it to effort....