Skilled Teachers Create Connections and a Shared Purpose By Dustin Bindreiff After years of observing hundreds of classrooms, I came to understand that skilled teachers are like symphony conductors. With grace and mastery, these teachers lead instruction, manage transitions, and provide feedback to the class in a
Scaffolding is an ongoing process of providing front-end, distributed, and back-end scaffolds. Along with peer scaffolding, these are part of our larger model of scaffolding. Source: How Scaffolding Works, Corwin. In this Corwin Connect blog, we take a quick look at back-end scaffolds but read on to
The escalating problems facing our nation’s schools have taken their toll on educators. Many educators feel devalued, under supported, and frustrated over the factors that get in the way of doing what we were hired to do. The political minefield of mandated policies and procedures
In an earlier Corwin Connect post, we took on the challenge of providing just-right supports for learners to provide the access and opportunity to the highest level of learning for all our students. As a reminder, we shared our model for educational scaffolding that brought
My favorite question for many years has been: “What is the problem for which _________ is the solution?” So what is the problem for which my new planner, Teaching Better Day by Day: A Planner to Support Your Instruction, Well-Being, and Professional Learning, is the
Spend a bit of time with young children and you’ll almost certainly hear questions like this: Why? Why not? How come? They are curious about the world around them. Their questions help them to locate a logic in what they experience and see. That’s verbal
If teachers are pursuing the goal of 100% engagement, then every student is contributing. In our new book, Confronting the Crisis of Engagement, Nancy Frey, Doug Fisher, and I explore why engagement is an essential ingredient for learning. A significant body of evidence, including the work
Teacher training programs prepare teachers on most aspects of the profession ranging from curriculum design and up-to-date pedagogy to relationship building with students. Current events have also urged programs to include social justice issues relating to the classroom, equity, and student agency and identity. However,
We live in a world where students have the ability to access an almost unlimited amount of information instantaneously. This same world is growing increasingly divided around beliefs and opinions on politics, current events, rights, and civic responsibilities. Because of these features of our everchanging
"Great teachers engineer learning experiences that put students in the driver's seat. Then, they get out of the way." - Ben Johnson To tap into the full intellectual potential of every learner and prepare them for the post-pandemic world, educators must help learners develop the essential