I’m pretty cautious about “group work.” It can be beneficial but the “can be” should be in italics because it has endemic problems that are often over-looked. One of which is the fact that it can be really hard to ensure that everyone is working, thinking and benefitting. The happy buzz of voices in…

  In our forthcoming book on the Science of Reading, Colleen Driggs, Erica Woolway and I discuss the importance of attention to reading.   Short version: if nothing else, the smartphone, having fractured the attention of millions, has taught us that attention is malleable. This is especially important in reading, which places such intense demands on…

  In a few weeks I’ll be in Miami with my colleague Hannah Solomon talking about techniques to Check for Understanding (There’s still room to join us: info and registration here).  One of the things we’ll talk about is the power of Active Observation–the idea that building systems to harvest data and observations about student thinking…