Teach your students the Six Hats of Critical Thinking

What exactly is critical thinking? How do we teach critical thinking skills to students? Critical thinking involves looking at problems in new ways and making connections across subject areas and disciplines (Johanning & Ellis, 2013).  Critical thinking skills are believed to be imperative for developing skills such as objectivity, honesty, empathy, and self-regulation.  Students benefit …

How my students showed me the Difference Between Delegation and Collaboration

Collaboration is a 21st Century Skill, a 4C... a skill we know students need.  How do we help students engage in learning opportunities that encourage true collaboration rather than just delegation? Background and Research: Collaboration includes sharing ideas, questions, and solutions (Johanning & Ellis, 2013). According to Hesse and colleagues (2015), collaboration also requires three …

The one approach that revolutionalized my classroom culture

My first few years of teaching,  I engaged in the popular tradition of revising the classroom rule list and proudly displaying what I hoped would prevent any and all classroom disruptions.  Yet, each year students somehow came up with situations that challenged my rules or tested my commitment to those rules.  Then, one year I …

10 More Ways to Unleash Problem Solvers (Part 2)

What can we do in our classrooms to increase student agency and skill to solve content-related problems and develop important life skills? In Part 1 of this post, I identified five action steps to take in the classroom to unleash problem-solving based on some of the articles in the October 2017 issue of ASCD's Educational …

5 ways to Unleash Problem Solvers in your classroom (Part 1)

This month's issue of the ASCD Educational Leadership focused on the theme Unleashing Problem Solvers.   Each article showcases the incredible work people are doing in classrooms around the world and I'm finding this issue to be particularly inspiring so far.  I really wanted to reflect on these ideas and come up with some concrete things …

5 Ways to Positively Impact How Students Discuss Current Events

Many educators feel a heightened responsibility to provide time and space for students to talk about current events.  How can we help students participate in intellectual conversations with civility?  And how do we help students still feel empathy and empowerment to engage in the larger world? The suggestions listed below come from my own personal …

4 Ways to Accomplish your Goals this School Year

At the beginning of the school year, there is a contagious feeling of optimism.  It's a fresh set of 180+ days ahead of us where anything seems possible.  We say, with best intentions, that this year we will become masters at that new curriculum, flawlessly use that new computer program with our students, or become …

Grading your grading system

After seeing quite a lot of twitter chatter about controversies of grading systems, I became curious to get more insight.  Knowing that Thomas Guskey is known for work related to this field, I decided to read his 2015 book:  "On Your Mark: Challenging the Conventions of Grading and Reporting". The first line of the book's introduction is:  "You …

The Four Phases of the GIR Coaching Model

  Common professional development generally result in implementation of new strategies 15% of the time. However, if training is followed with on-going instructional coaching, implementation rates rise to as much as 85% (Cornett and Knight, 2009). We can all identify reasons why traditional "sit and get" PD doesn't result in long-term change. One common criticism is that …

Do your students know how to learn?

Being in control of one's learning requires learning how to learn. This "thinking about thinking" is sometimes referred to as metacognition. Students who do this successfully tend to have a good grasp of what they know and don't know, and they can plan and regulate their actions accordingly.  These students can also thoughtfully select from developed …