I’m very concerned about teacher workload. Plenty of teachers are running on fumes. In the 2024 State of the American Teacher survey, 59% of teachers reported frequent job-related stress and 60% reported burnout.Still, I’ve noticed something odd in the workload discourse: the most dependable solutions to reducing workload often turn out to be the ones … Continue reading The Workload Solutions the Profession Doesn’t Want
S5E13: Mike Schmoker on How Schools Can Get Results Now
Mike Schmoker is one of the most influential voices in school improvement, urging schools to recommit to the fundamentals: coherent curriculum, strong lesson design, and authentic literacy—reading, discussion, and writing—throughout the school day. Across books like Focus and Results Now 2.0, and decades of essays and commentary, his through-line is the same: schools don’t usually … Continue reading S5E13: Mike Schmoker on How Schools Can Get Results Now
What Actually Works in Instructional Coaching
The “Thinking Out Loud” episodes on Better Teaching: Only Stuff That Works are a running set of conversations to make sense of instruction, coaching, and implementation as they actually function in schools—not as we wish they did. The premise is straightforward: Gene Tavernetti and I take a concrete problem of practice, name what tends to … Continue reading What Actually Works in Instructional Coaching
Direct Instruction Motivation, Part 4: Motivational Models
I recently started this series about motivation and Direct/explicit instruction. So far, it has looked at key delivery and design considerations, such as brisk pacing, praise, and obtaining high success rates. These are useful as goals for individual teachers, but on their own, they miss what the best schools do to motivate whole groups of … Continue reading Direct Instruction Motivation, Part 4: Motivational Models
S5E12: Brian Poncy on Better Ways to Teach Math Facts
In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Brian Poncy to explore a claim you’ve probably heard in schools: “Teaching math facts interferes with understanding.” From there, we dig into better ways to think about math facts, what schools can do differently, and the practical decisions that show up when schools decide to take facts … Continue reading S5E12: Brian Poncy on Better Ways to Teach Math Facts
S5E11: Alex Gingell on Setting the Culture and Conditions for Effective Instructional Coaching
In this episode, I sit down with Alex Gingell to unpack what it actually takes to make instructional coaching work in a school. Alex explains why his first priority wasn’t improving teaching, but stabilizing behavior, curriculum, and trust—and why coaching can only succeed once those foundations are secure. We talk through how he used Steplab … Continue reading S5E11: Alex Gingell on Setting the Culture and Conditions for Effective Instructional Coaching
S5E10: Laura Doherty on the Baltimore Curriculum Project
In this episode of the Direct Instruction podcast, I’m joined by Laura Doherty, President and CEO of the Baltimore Curriculum Project (BCP)—Maryland’s largest operator of neighborhood, PK–8 public charter schools, and one of the longest-running Direct Instruction networks in the United States. For nearly three decades, BCP has been quietly doing something that many systems … Continue reading S5E10: Laura Doherty on the Baltimore Curriculum Project
Registration Open for The Explicit Teaching Institute July 27-31 in New York City!
Want to level up your teaching this summer? Join me in NYC for The Explicit Teaching Institute—a five-day deep dive into the science of learning and the highest-leverage moves in explicit instruction. We’ll spend our mornings unpacking the research, our middays studying expert teaching on video, and our afternoons rehearsing the moves that make instruction … Continue reading Registration Open for The Explicit Teaching Institute July 27-31 in New York City!
Stop Asking Teachers to Chase the Discovery Dragon
The phrase “chasing the dragon” refers to the classic cycle of addiction. People keep chasing the dragon not because it’s working, but because they’re convinced the payoff will eventually come — if only they keep trying. (I’ll spare you a digression into my history with the game of golf.) Teachers are told to chase the … Continue reading Stop Asking Teachers to Chase the Discovery Dragon
S5E09: Marty Siegel on Direct Instruction Engineering and the Future of EdTech
In this episode of Progressively Incorrect, I’m joined by Marty Siegel, Professor Emeritus of Informatics and Instructional Systems Technology, and a pioneer whose career bridges early Direct Instruction, large-scale computer-based learning, human–computer interaction, and the emerging world of AI-driven instruction. Marty began his career at the University of Illinois in the 1960s, right at the … Continue reading S5E09: Marty Siegel on Direct Instruction Engineering and the Future of EdTech
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