Educational Pedagogy

A major barrier to innovation in the classroom is teacher exhaustion. I regularly work with teachers who like the idea of trying new teaching strategies, blended learning models, and technology tools, but they don’t have the time or energy to experiment.

When I work with teachers, my goal is to get them to shift their mindsets. Instead of asking themselves, “How can I?” I want them to pause and rephrase the question, “How can students?” This shift in teacher mindset seems simple, yet it goes against most teachers’ instincts. We place a lot of pressure on ourselves to do it all. Unfortunately, that mentality robs students of opportunities to learn.

Via John Evans

Via Pantelis Chiotellis

When the bell rang for early dismissal on a recent afternoon at Cold Springs Middle School in Nevada, students sprinted toward the buses while teachers filed into the library, where posters filled with the names of every child in the 980-student school covered the walls.

Taking seats where they could, the teachers turned their attention to Principal Roberta Duvall, who asked her staff to go through the rosters with colored markers and make check marks under columns labeled “Name/Face,” “Something Personal,” “Personal/Family Story,” and “Academic Standing,” to note whether they knew the child just by name or something more—their grades, their family’s story, their hobbies.

Via John Evans