I have been in the instructional coaching game for a few years now. You can hear me talk about it on The School Leader's Podcast here and with Sarah Cottingham here. During this time, I've encountered a number of conventional beliefs about instructional coaching that, frankly, don't make sense or conflict with what my on-the-ground … Continue reading The Nascent Field of Instructional Coaching
S2E25: Pamela Snow on Early Language and Literacy Skills
In this episode of Progressively Incorrect, I am joined by Dr. Pamela Snow. Dr. Snow is a professor of cognitive psychology at the School of Education at La Trobe University in Melbourne, and an absolute legend of the Science of Language and Reading. Subscribe to this podcast on…SpotifyGoogle PodcastsApple PodcastsWordPress One of the most contentious … Continue reading S2E25: Pamela Snow on Early Language and Literacy Skills
S2E19: Daniel Bundred on Tackling Behavior in Tricky Schools
In this episode of Progressively Incorrect, we will continue our journey through the education debates by chatting with Daniel Bundred about behavior, specifically on how to turn around a school that struggles to manage it. Subscribe to this podcast on…SpotifyGoogle PodcastsApple PodcastsWordPress I think this episode is a fantastic example of how networking and social … Continue reading S2E19: Daniel Bundred on Tackling Behavior in Tricky Schools
S2E5: Becky Lim and Matt Rhoads on EdTech and Global Collaborations
This is a lovely episode that I recorded towards the end of the summer featuring two of my favorite people in education and edutwitter, Becky Lim and Dr. Matthew Rhoads. Becky and Matt are enthusiastic about the potential for edtech in the classroom, and in this episode they share some of their strategies for developing … Continue reading S2E5: Becky Lim and Matt Rhoads on EdTech and Global Collaborations
From Door to Do Now
When I coach teachers who struggle with classroom management, I often begin by helping them focus on the things that happen just prior to the actual lesson: The way students move and interact in the hallways, the way students line up at the door and enter, and the design of the task students are meant … Continue reading From Door to Do Now
The Private School Penalty
For the past 9 years, I've worked in private independent and international schools, and before that, I trained and worked in public schools. As I've written before, the challenges that teachers experience in each of these contexts are vastly different. A pedagogy consisting largely of unstructured tasks with ill-defined goals, coupled with a laissez-faire approach … Continue reading The Private School Penalty
Is Classroom Management Based on a “Dim View” of Human Nature?
One of my favorite episodes of the Progressively Incorrect podcast is the one in which we discuss an opinion piece by Alfie Kohn on classroom management. Consistent with his past writing, Kohn takes issue with the idea that schools should concern themselves with externally regulating students’ behaviors, saying that classroom management is based on a … Continue reading Is Classroom Management Based on a “Dim View” of Human Nature?
5 Meanings of Student-Centered Instruction
There's an interesting essay called "Five Meanings of Direct Instruction" where the author (Rosenshine, 2008) shows how even a term as commonly used as direct instruction can take on different meanings depending on who you talk to. Some people use it in the pejorative to refer to non-stop passive lecturing, while those familiar with the … Continue reading 5 Meanings of Student-Centered Instruction
Memories of a warm-strict “DI-KR” teacher
My first grade teacher's name was Ms. Wee. Other than her last name, there wasn't much else funny about her. Ms. Wee was someone I would characterize as a warm-strict, traditional teacher. I still remember the contrast between how carefully she controlled our entry into the classroom on the first day of school compared to … Continue reading Memories of a warm-strict “DI-KR” teacher
Reducing the Distance in Distance Learning
Educators continue to ask both the right and wrong questions about distance learning during this online learning period. In a recent post, I argued that instead of squabbling over which technology we use, or whether a synchronous format has advantages over an asynchronous format, we should look at distance learning through a different lens. Specifically, we … Continue reading Reducing the Distance in Distance Learning
Education Rickshaw 