One of the most difficult classes I ever taught was a class of second-semester seniors during the last period of the day. They’d drag into class, slump in their seats, and complain about every assignment I gave them. Some days, they would spend so much time talking, joking, and ignoring me that it would take […]
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Wanna know the big difference between a motivated student and one who could care less? It’s not their grade point average, their socio-economic background, or even the degree of their parental involvement. I’ve seen failing students in Title I schools eagerly engage in learning about statistics – and also seen upper middle class students headed to […]
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For years, I thought that the best way to motivate students was to have an extensive “bag of tricks” at the ready. The moment my students’ motivation began to lag, I could simply pull out my bag of tricks and find something new and novel to snap their attention back to the lesson. Sometimes I’d play […]
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I find that at the root of feeling overwhelmed are actually one or more of these three common mistakes:Mistake 1: Too much stuff.Ever feel like you are drowning in a pile of stuff – ungraded papers, or handouts from the last eight workshops you attended, paperwork that needs to be completed, or a stack of […]
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Recently, I asked you “When it comes to your own professional development, what is your single biggest challenge or frustration?” The responses ranged from finding the funding for your professional development classes, resources, and trainings to finding good PD that was actually relevant to your area of interest or your specific discipline or field. But the overwhelming […]
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One of my first contracts as a consultant was to design a support plan for teachers who were struggling to teach Advanced Placement courses for non-traditional AP students. Many of these students had never taken an AP course before and were really struggling with the rigorous material and the fast pace of the course. It’s something […]
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If you really want to build true accountability in your school, then you must commit to strategic conversations with teachers. I believe that. But, as I continue to discover in my own work on school boards and some of the schools I serve, practicing what I preach is pretty hard. It is a lot easier to avoid […]
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A few years ago, I had just started working with a new school. On my first day in the building, I asked the principal Mr. Dawes to take me on a walkthrough so that I could see the range of teaching happening in the building. Mr. Dawes took me to several classrooms and then I […]
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It’s happened to the best of us. We teach a lesson because the curriculum guide demands it. But we don’t find the lesson particularly interesting and we have a hard time finding ways to make it engaging to our students. We just can’t seem to “sell it.” We get through the lesson but the truth […]
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We spend a lot of time talking about how to motivate our students, but we hardly spend any time talking about out own motivation. And that’s a shame, because after working with thousands of teachers over the years, I’ve learned a really important truth about motivation:Unmotivated people can’t motivate anyone. Think about it. If you are exhausted, […]
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