From Purpose To Platform: 4 Best Practices For Teaching With Video
From Purpose To Platform: 4 Best Practices For Teaching With Video contributed by Emily Merritt, letsrecap.com Video can be a powerful strategy for teaching and learning. In the last 10 years, we’ve seen it revolutionize instruction (Khan academy, MOOC’s), creative...
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Why What Students Don’t Know Is More Important Than What They Do
Why What Students Don't Know Is More Important Than What They Do by Terry Heick For me, my biggest takeaway from college was learning what I didn’t know. So many passionate, crazy-smart people--teachers and students--that modeled for me learning as I hadn’t seen it...
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10 Dos & Don’ts For Group Work & Student Grouping
10 Dos And Don'ts For Group Work & Student Grouping by Jennifer Rita Nichols Educators have learned much about the benefits of using projects for learning, and collaboration is easily recognized as an important skill for students to build. There are very few...
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24 Things A Teacher Should Never Ask A Student To Do
by TeachThought Staff 1. Meaningless work It’s fine to start with an academic standard, but standards aren’t meaningful to students. Either make the work meaningful, or shelve it until you can. If you can’t, ask someone in our department, building, or PLN. If they...
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Innovation & Imagination: 12 Benefits Of Creativity
Innovation & Imagination: 12 Benefits of Creativity by Ashley McCann Creativity is a valuable skill. All too often people outgrow their imagination as adulthood approaches due to an encroaching sense of self doubt, an ingrained belief that it’s an impractical...
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5 Characteristics Of Global Learning
5 Characteristics Of Global Learning by Terry Heick An increasingly globalized society is putting pressure on education to “globalize.” We’ve talked about the definition of global learning before. This quick post is more about the characteristics of that kind of...
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How To Work Smarter–Not Harder–As A Teacher
How To Work Smarter--Not Harder--As A Teacher by Terry Heick Teaching is hard. And because it's so important, we push ourselves--and are pushed by others--to be as close as we can be to perfect. In public education, defined in terms and standards that it defines and...
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25 Alternatives To “I Don’t Know” And “I Can’t”
25 Alternatives To 'I Don't Know' & 'I Can't' by TeachThought Staff At the core of a growth mindset is the willingness to change. While you might want to 'change' (e.g., improve), changing your own thinking patterns has to precede any behavioral change (e.g.,...
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10 Things I Wish I Knew My First Year Of Teaching
by Terry Heick My first year of teaching was a blur. At the time, it didn’t feel like a blur. It felt a joyous, adrenaline-fueled rush of lessons, meetings, and new relationships. But in hindsight, it was definitely a blur. And now, years later, I can see a few simple...
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What Is The Cognitive Load Theory? A Definition For Teachers
What Is The Cognitive Load Theory? A Definition For Teachers by Terry Heick Preface: I’m (very clearly) not a neurologist. While I often have dedicated a lot of thought and research into things I write, sometimes I write about things in order tounderstand them–or...
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Want To Change Education? You’d better Have These 6 Things
Want To Change Education? You’d better Have These 6 Things by Terry Heick Every afternoon, after failing to take a nap because I make everything harder than it has to be, I pout down to Starbucks for coffee and a book. Today a teacher I used to work with walked by,...
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Good Teachers Stick To The Lines, Great Teachers Inspire New Lines
Good Teachers Stick To The Lines, Great Teachers Inspire New Lines by Drew Perkins, Director of TeachThought PD On September 3rd, 2017 I was saddened by the news of the passing of musician Walter Becker. For those not familiar, he was one half of the musical genius...
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Go Ahead And Laugh At Kid Snippets: “Math Class” (Imagined by Kids)
Go Ahead And Laugh At Kid Snippets: "Math Class" (Imagined by Kids) Recently I had the privilege to spend some time in my oldest daughter's elementary classroom as I helped one of her teachers design and implement a fairly simple project-based learning unit. In this...
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Alternatives To Homework: A Chart For Teachers
Alternatives To Homework: A Chart For Teachers by TeachThought Staff Part of rethinking learning means rethinking the bits and pieces of the learning process–teaching strategies, writing pieces, etc. Which is what makes the following chart from Kathleen...
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48 Critical Thinking Questions For Any Content Area
48 Critical Thinking Questions For Any Content Area by Ashley McCann Critical thinking is the heart and soul of learning, and–in our estimation anyway–ultimately more important than any one specific content area or subject matter. It’s also an over-used and rather...
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Is The Cognitive Load Theory The Most Important Thing A Teacher Should Know?
Is The Cognitive Load Theory The Most Important Thing A Teacher Should Know? by Terry Heick What is the most important thing a teacher should know? According to British educationalist Dylan Wiliam, it is the Cognitive Load Theory (Wiliam 2017). Is it true? Well, that...
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How Rapid Technology Change Impacts Your Teaching
How Rapid Technology Change Impacts Your Teaching by Terry Heick In an increasingly digital world (or increasingly digital human experience anyway), rapid technology change is a fact of life. And these threats aren’t limited to business disruption, the safety of your...
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What Writing Is & Is Not
What Writing Is & Is Not by Terry Heick Writing is inherently reflective. Writing is an output and product of equal parts process and affection. Writing can be used to learn and demonstrate learning–often simulatenously. Writing is not limited to any specific...
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What Is The Future Of Data In Education?
What Is The Future Of Data In Education? by Terry Heick Data is both a catalyst and a burden for most educators. Data-driven instruction is an older idea that finally soaked into general K-12 education reform in the United States within the last decade, now operating...
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Teach Students To Think Irrationally
Teach Students To Think Irrationally by Terry Heick The folly of formal learning is a humbling, melancholy thing. As planners, designers, executors, and general caretakers of public and private education systems, we are tasked with the insurmountable: overcome a...
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What Is Your ‘Why’? Teaching Positive In The Face Negativity
What Is Your ‘Why’? Teaching Positive In The Face Negativity by Rachelle Poth What is your ‘why’? How can you ‘teach positive’ in the face of negativity? While many teachers focus on practical ideas and skills–assessment ideas, teaching strategies, and classroom...
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Don’t Spend A Penny On Education Technology Until This Is Clear
Don’t Spend A Penny On Education Technology Until This Is Clear by Terry Heick More than five years ago in February of 2012, a local Swedish newspaper reported that the Stockholm suburb of Sollentuna planned to transition entirely away from textbooks to tablet PCs by...
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How The World Is Changing & How Education Can Respond
How The World Is Changing & How Education Can Respond by Terry Heick How is the world changing? Most broadly, technology is defining new terms for ‘human’ connections–and consequently altering how we define our ‘selves.’ Identity, friendship, communication, and...
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11 Underlying Assumptions Of Digital Literacy
11 Underlying Assumptions Of Digital Literacy by Terry Heick In understanding the shift from literacy to digital literacy–or rather to understand them both in their own native contexts–it may help to take a look at the underlying assumptions of digital literacy. This...
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5 Simple Ideas That Can Transform Your Teaching
5 Simple Ideas That Can Transform Your Teaching by Terry Heick Teaching is impossibly complex. Unless you were coldly calculated and level-headed as, there is no way to be the teacher so many begin their career striving to be. You will simply never be able to fulfill...
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Why Your Students Aren’t Learning: 10 Silent Disruptors Of Academic Performance
Why Your Students Aren’t Learning: 10 Silent Disruptors Of Academic Performance by Terry Heick The reality of learning in 2017 is a matter of perspective, but it’s clear that most K-20 learning environments are teacher-led and academic (as opposed to self-directed and...
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12 Rules Of Great Teaching
12 Rules Of Great Teaching by Terry Heick Recently, I’ve been thinking of the universal truths in teaching. Students should be first. Don’t always start planning with a standard. Questions matter more than answers. Trust is a currency of a human classroom. So I...
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15 Reflection Strategies To Help Students Retain What You Just Taught Them
15 Reflection Strategies To Help Students Retain What You Just Taught Them by Terry Heick Reflection is a natural part of learning. We all think about new experiences–the camping on the car ride home, the mistakes made in a game, or the emotions felt while finishing a...
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For This Lesson, I Stepped Aside To Become A Facilitator Of Learning
For This Lesson, I Stepped Aside To Become A Facilitator Of Learning by Rachelle Dene Poth It started with a cross-class collaboration idea. I was not sure the idea would work, but was willing to give it a try and it had captured the interest of students. I connected...
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12 Must-Read Articles About Assessment
by TeachThought Staff For in-person professional development from TeachThought on reflection in learning or any other topic your school or district might need, contact us today. There are great books about assessment (Tomlinson’s on assessment in the differentiated...
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The Classroom Management Strategy That Works Every Time
The Classroom Management Strategy That Works Every Time by Dominique Smith Just like every student wonders what their teachers will be like this school year, teachers are similarly curious. This curiosity builds over the years, often catalyzed by the fear of failure....
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5 Ways Any School Can Be A 21st Century School
5 Ways Any School Can Be A 21st Century School by Terry Heick It’s nearly 2018, and the world is a weird place. This is a world where Ubers have replaced taxi cabs and Elon Musk is drilling underneath Los Angeles to reduce traffic congestion. A world where a President...
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12 Questions To Ask Your Students On The First Day Of School
12 Questions To Ask Your Students On The First Day Of School by Terry Heick The premise here is simple enough, and I’ve written about this kind of thing before in greater detail (see 20 Questions Parents Should Ask Teachers). You’ll likely learn their name, roughly be...
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How To Support Students That Never Come To School
How To Support Students That Never Come To School by TeachThought Staff No matter how many opportunities there are for innovation in education, in any form this much is true: School can’t work if students don’t attend. Student attendance can be an issue at any grade...
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8 Things Every Teacher Needs To Improve
8 Things Every Teacher Needs To Improve by Terry Heick 1. Humility You’re probably very good at what you do–at least parts of it. You’re also probably very bright, compassionate, and driven or you wouldn’t have made it to whatever place you’re currently in as an...
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Critical Knowledge: 4 Domains More Important Than Academics
Critical Knowledge: 4 Domains More Important Than Academics by Terry Heick As academic standards shift, technology evolves, and student habits change, schools are being forced to consider new ways of framing curriculum and engaging students in the classroom, and...
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How To Use The Gradual Release Of Responsibility Model To Grow More Confident Students
by Terry Heick Learning is a culture. It starts there—with the students first as human beings needing to understand their environment. And it ends there—with students using what we give them back at home, in those physical and digital environments. Even the practices...
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8 Strategies To Improve Your School Without Anyone Noticing
8 Strategies To Improve Your School Without Anyone Noticing by Terry Heick Education reform is tricky. For one, so many teachers are wary of change. Not improvement, mind you, but change for the sake of change–shifting from one program or “research-based strategy” to...
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3 Modes Of Thinking: Lateral, Divergent & Convergent Thought
3 Modes Of Thinking: Lateral, Divergent & Convergent Thought by TeachThought Staff TeachThought is about, more than anything else, human improvement. A core tenet of humanity is our ability to think critically and with imagination and creativity. Therefore, it...
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8 Things To Look For In Today’s Classroom
8 Things To Look For In Today’s Classroom by TeachThought Staff What are the kinds of things you should look for in today’s classroom? The common response often begins and ends with technology, but as we’ve discussed often, it’s not about the technology. To a point,...
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Why Assessments Don’t Really Measure Understanding
Why Assessments Don’t Really Measure Understanding by Terry Heick ed note: this has been updated and republished from a previous post Assessing understanding might be the most complex thing an educator or academic institution has to do. Unfortunately, professional...
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7 Strategies For Using Context Clues In Reading
7 Strategies For Using Context Clues In Reading by Kathy Glass We often ask students to use context clues to figure out a word’s meaning; therefore, it is our job to formally teach how authors use them. In doing so, students become armed with an inventory of ways to...
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