“Quiet Presence” is the idea that going lower and slower with your voice is the best way to help students focus optimally, especially in those moments when their attention is just beginning to fray. In some ways that’s the opposite of what you might expect. It’s a common mistake in the early years of teaching…
In this post, I’m going to share a video of Charlotte Pottinger’s classroom at Rivers Primary Academy in Walsall. I’ve been looking forward to sharing it because it’s so lovely on so many levels. I’m going to call it a Retrieval Practice clip because that’s her main purpose–to start her Maths lesson by making sure…
A few weeks ago I spent a day at Atlanta United’s Academy with Matt Lawrey, one of my favorite coaches and talent developers. In the afternoon we joined Will Bates, who was coaching the U15s, to experiment with a few ideas we are both interested in. We’ve talked in the past about trying to socialize…
Memo Sifuentes coaches the u14s (and formerly the u12s) at Austin FC’s Youth Academy. I always find him incredibly thoughtful and intentional about the teaching part of his job. We’ve been talking a bit over the past year about game day coaching: what to do to maximize long-term learning at halftime, in pregame talks, during…
In our previous three posts, we described lessons learned from our partnership with Harmony Public Schools as they endeavored to strengthen a culture of Lesson Preparation across their 60 campuses. Our team defines Lesson Preparation as consisting of 3 core practices: Plan the Exemplar Plan for Error Plan the Means of Participation (For more on…