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Written trackers can be useful in communicating success criteria to students as well as to invite learners to be agents in their own progress monitoring; they might be used for specific tasks or for unit- or yearlong targets. The table below is an example of a self-assessment, self-report tool. Elementary […]

An additive rubric is a tool for task design that scaffolds students’ success. Beginning in the first column, we can describe what we expect all students to do to get started, then build with more detail, rigor and complexity towards the right hand side of the page. In this way, […]

I met a special education teacher who shared a story about a boy with autism who had not spoken a word all year. Then one day she gave the group a uniquely challenging math problem. This boy figured it out before all his peers; everyone saw his solution and believed […]

Into the Classroom: Mrs. Blake’s Fifth Grade Readers’ Workshop Mrs. Blake’s students have been fifth graders for seven days. This time of year is all about growing independence and learning the rituals and routines of readers’ workshop. But Mrs. Blake’s fifth graders are also knee-deep into an inquiry of how […]

“When I switched to workshop model instruction, my students’ math achievement leapt up by 50 percent in a matter of months. I am not kidding. The principal was in my room asking, ‘What is it you are doing in here?’ And I told her, ‘I read this book, and now […]

Trust, shared purpose, interdependence, mutual support, and safety in taking risks are some of the features of an effective community. Your own community might be your neighborhood, your faith group, your colleagues, or your extended family. For students, their learning community, the space in which and the people with whom […]

Believe in the children, fight foolishness, and learn who our children are and the legacies they bring, education expert Lisa Delpit (2013) implores us in “Multiplication Is for White People.” The foolishness she is referring to is wasting teachers’ time keeping track of non-instructional tasks in regimented, teacher-proof curricula. As […]