Jen Kim is the Cruise Director of Team TLaC. She drags us all out onto the (often metaphorical, but sometimes literal) dance floor and encourages us until we think we’re cool, hip, a little bit with it. She talked us into being all hip by posting some “Throwback Thursday” videos, even though many of use weren’t…
Over here at TLaC Towers we’ve been doing a bit of thinking about Strong Voice. We know it’s important to an effective classroom and we know that Quiet Power is a key part of it–going quieter and slower when you’re under duress. But of course that’s easier said than done. A recent observation piqued my colleague…
Rue Ratray is an teacher I truly admire. Watching his lessons at Edward Brooke East Boston this year has been a revelation- the craft of teaching intentionally applied with the constant goal of building rigor. He’s featured in some previous posts here and here. Rue’s classroom is particularly noteworthy for the rigor and discipline of his…
Wrapping up Teach Like a Champion 2.0 this week. Shooting to have it your neighborhood bookstore before the end of 2014. Here’s a little snippet from Check for Understanding–which gets TWO chapters in the new version!!!–reflecting on why it’s so hard to take action when data starts to emerge, real-time, that maybe students aren’t mastering what…
Had a great time talking about reading in the era of Common Core at NSVF Summit on Wednesday. One of the topics I tried to emphasize was the importance of text complexity. It’s critical that kids read more challenging texts in school, and while the Common Core’s emphasis on text complexity is a very good thing,…