Thanks to Blake (who coined the term), by Christmas break I was “Dr. Teacher”. It took me most of the year to understand why, for all my students, that name stuck. “Dr. Teacher” was a simple term of respect for me as their teacher, but it was also a way of making me theirs. No…
The Recipe for Powerful Classroom Magic
Many of us are on the steady ascent into a new school year. Plan books at the ready—we’re going to create some magic! But some of our students coming in have been spellbound—by a Dark Arts spell: Learnicus Paralysis. Their peers, grades, and past experiences have cursed them to believe they’re stupid. They feel unworthy…
The Secret Ingredients to Effective Classroom Management
You’re all excited about the new school year—you’ve got your school supplies, your new planner, and class schedule. You are ready. But then. . .you remember some behavior issues from last year, or worse yet, another teacher warns you about that student, who’s in your class this year. You know the one. He’s always off task, she’s…
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How to Reach All Your Levels–Even if You Don’t Teach in Small Group
With increasing fluency needs and disparity between grade levels, what is a teacher to do? You may feel like you have students coming to you in 7thgrade who are 2 or 3 grade levels behind! How do we even teach 7th grade reading if they can’t read? But you’re not alone. I get it! Just last…
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How to Reach ALL Your Levels Year After Year
Sometimes we worry that all the extra work we put into reaching ALL our levels in reading isn’t ever going to work. We can tell that what we are doing, how we are teaching, is just not working for these students. . .day in and day out, year after year. We may be teaching…
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How to Do and Choose What’s Right For You
As innovators and educators we often have so much information coming to us (data from student observations, new learning from PLC, social media, and lots of other content we read on our own), we can feel overwhelmed by it all. What’s worse, not all of it is useful. But now that you know how to…