Read or Click Play to Listen to the Audio Blog Audio Blog Learn how checking for understanding during the lesson improves first-time teaching It is a quiet Thursday morning, and your class is ready to learn. You deliver one of your best lessons EVER on a very challenging subject. The students nod their…
The Best Discipline Program is Effective Instruction One of the most common and challenging issues teachers face in the classroom is behavior problems. In many cases, student misbehavior is due to two key factors: Lack of confidence. Students can’t complete the skills or understand the concept. Therefore they have disengaged from the lesson as shown…
We are happy to report that we have teamed up with Parlier Unified School District to conduct an innovative, academic summer program designed to improve student literacy and math skills while supporting teachers through classroom coaching. The six-week academy, which begins this month, is being called “StepUP to Literacy”. Recently, a 2016 CAASPT assessment found…
The Problem with ELD Instruction Imagine being dropped in the middle of a foreign country where you don’t know the language. Now, imagine that you have been placed into a high school English class and the assignment is to analyze the metaphors in chapter 4 of The Grapes of Wrath. Except you don’t understand the…
The final type of cognitive strategy that we will discuss in this series of blog posts is metacognitive strategies. As we’ve seen, cognitive strategies are the basic mental techniques we use to think, study, and learn (such as chunking, rehearsal, elaboration, and organization). Taking it to the next level, metacognitive strategies involve “thinking about thinking.” …
What makes an effective literacy program? As an adult, you already know how to read and write. You were given skills and tools in school to master reading and writing. These skills and tools came from a literacy program. A literacy program contains all the components necessary for you to master reading and writing. However,…
The teacher asked students to write a paragraph about video games. Adam wrote: Link is a clever guy who has to rescue Princess Zelda from the villain Ganon. Along the way, he learns to use the Triforce. Anthony wrote: To play the game, you have to be good at using a controller. With the right…
How to learn better means giving students the skills to manage their own learning. We call these cognitive strategies. In previous blogs, we discussed chunking, rehearsal, and elaboration strategies. This time we will look at organization methods that you can use with your students. Organization strategies Where rehearsal and elaboration strategies focus on words,…
Math is Tough! When consulting with a high school in Southern California recently, I taught a lesson on graphing linear equations to Algebra I students. While I was teaching the lesson, I randomly selected non-volunteers to Check for Understanding, and through the student responses I found some very interesting math misconceptions! The lesson I am…
Expanding Vocabulary Last time we discussed the Standards for Literacy Practice (SLPs) that are part of Common Core. These standards are recommended guidelines that subject area teachers (such as social studies/history, science, and technical subjects) should use to reinforce literacy in their classes. One of the main shifts in these literacy standards is the focus on…