Visible Learning in Action: How to Document and Value Student Thinking
Discover how Learning as a Consequence of Thinking connects to Visible Learning. Practical strategies for teachers to document and value student thinking in the classroom.
Teacher Clarity
Teacher Clarity: Understanding How Learners Learn
Teacher Clarity
Teacher Clarity: Understanding How Learners Learn
Category Engage Students with Effective Project-Based Learning
Project Based Learning (PBL) is students acquire content knowledge and skills to answer a driving question. based on an authentic problem.
Thinking Routines for Critical Thinking in the Classroom
Thinking doesn’t get stronger because we tell students to “go deeper.” It gets stronger when we give it shape. Thinking routines are short moves teachers use to help students slow down, notice details, ask better questions, and explain ideas with…
Tapas Approach to PBL: Why Direct Instruction Makes It Work
Big project-based learning units can feel like asking students to cook a full feast before they’ve learned how to chop an onion. Teachers feel it too. There’s a lot to manage, a lot to assess, and a lot that can…
How to Design Project-Based Learning with Clarity: 5 Steps That Keep Learning on Track
Projects can energize a class and still miss the mark. Students may stay busy, make attractive products, and enjoy the process, yet finish with thin understanding and uneven work. That is why PBL with Clarity matters. In simple terms, project-based…
How Teachers Help Students Feel Known, Valued, and Respected
From Student Agency: Building A Culture of Thinking Through Changing Roles, anchor page, I discussed that a Culture of Thinking means the eight forces that shape classroom life: expectations, language, time, modeling, routines, interactions, opportunities, and environment (Project Zero, 2024).…
Driving Questions in PBL: What They Are, How to Write Them, and How to Use Them Well
A driving question is the question that gives a project-based learning unit its job. It tells students what they are trying to figure out, why the work matters, and what ties the lessons together. Without it, a project can feel…
Classroom Belonging Strategies That Help Students Feel Seen and Supported
Sense of Belonging shapes how students enter a room, read a task, and handle a hard day. When students feel seen, safe, valued, respected, and connected, learning gets easier to access. Attendance improves, behavior often settles, and students take more…
Building Self-Efficacy in Rigorous, Inclusive Classrooms
Introduction Self-efficacy is a student’s belief that they can succeed at a task. That belief shapes whether they start, how long they stick with it, and what they do when learning gets hard. For educators, the goal isn’t to choose…
What Is Self-Assessment? A Practical Guide for Classroom Use
Ms. Rivera collects lab notebooks and sees the same pattern again. The conclusion sections look “finished,” but the reasoning is thin. When she writes feedback, students skim it, then move on. The next lab looks the same. So she tries…
Provoke and Release Strategy: Learning Through Curiosity
Introduction What leads students to ask their own questions in class? In Beautiful Questions in the Classroom, Warren Berger describes a two-part approach he calls the Provoke and Release Strategy. This method uses curiosity as the starting point and gives students space…
Scrum A Tested Organization Tool for Project Based Learning
What is SCRUM? Why I Scrum: Using a Project Management Tool for PBL SCRUM tools support Scrum ceremonies, including planning sprints, keeping track of daily work, refining backlogs, and using data from the past to keep improving. When people work…
How to Seek Rigor in Project Based Learning Classroom
Seeking Rigor In PBL What is Rigorous Project Based Learning? Robert Marzano presents a way to design projects that emphasizes the enhancement of students’ options. He uses structures that provide clear pathways to rigor from his book Understanding Rigor in…
Identity and Agency Important Foundation of a Human Being
Identity and Agency Defined Identity refers to our comprehensive understanding of our own features, our self- perception in relation to others, our perceived abilities, and our recognition of our weaknesses, as stated by Nancy Frey, Douglas Fisher, and Dominique Smith,…
6 Keys Culture of Inquiry You Need to Know in Classrooms
Creating a Culture of Inquiry Culture of Inquiry Six key things educators can do to create a culture, atmosphere, and environment where students are more comfortable asking questions and more inclined to do so are: Foster an Appreciation of Questioning…
Good Questions are Empowering Authentic, Respectful and Invitational
What Makes a Good Question? Jim Knight, author of The Beautiful Questions, asks what makes a good question? Answer effective questions are Empowering Authentic Respectful Invitational Empowering Asking good questions empowers the one receiving the inquiry, not the one posing…
Strategies Better Collaborative Relationships for Learning
Collaborative Relationships for Learning Improving Students’ Relationships with Teachers to Provide Essential Supports for Learning In their book, Partnering with Students, authors Mary O’Connell and Kara Vandas provide strategies for better collaborative relationships of learning. Collaborative relationships for learning are…