By Tyler Rablin

I’ve heard it called an epidemic.

I’m talking about the amount of missing work at the secondary level. It truly defined the beginning of the school year. Teachers returned to the classroom excited to be back with students, try out new ideas, and engage in the type of...

By Elizabeth Jorgensen

I wish I had realized this sooner:

Students complete late work not because they care about the authenticity of the assignment but because they want to move their grade up a letter.

Early in my teaching career, I accepted all late work. At the end of each semester, I...

By Starr Sackstein

When it comes time to set goals with students, inevitably, there are several whose highest aspiration is to achieve an A in all of their classes because this is what the system and their parents have impressed upon them for years.

They don’t have a plan except to do all...

By Elizabeth Jorgensen

Can I tell you a secret? I hate grades.  

I don’t like judging my students or ranking them. I don’t like placing value on them or on their work. And I’ve found that if I place judgment on progress, students stop trying. 

While my colleagues...

Asking questions is one of the best ways to get students thinking about a topic. However, not all questions are created equal. Some questions are simply factual recitations or closed questions that can be easily answered with a yes or no.

To increase student engagement and understanding, ask...

Ungrading is a growing movement in K–12 classrooms. It means that teachers don't give students letter or number grades for their work; instead, they give feedback that helps students understand what is being taught and what they know.

Proponents of...

The time has come for educators to change the way they think about assessment. The old-fashioned "sage on a stage" approach is no longer viable in today's interconnected world. To create deep, meaningful learning outcomes, teachers need to rethink how they use assessments and what types of tasks...

By Karen Terwilliger

When deciding to set up learning centers, teachers might feel they need to make a huge change in the look of the classroom for it to work. They might feel like the task is too big and takes too much time to do. These limiting thoughts might discourage teachers from even...

Too often, when I walked into secondary classrooms as an instructional coach or leader, I was disheartened to find students sitting in rows, not truly engaging with the material being presented. It was evident that the teachers loved their content and some students loved...

 By Starr Sackstein

Secondary teachers love their content and are already struggling to cover the curriculum in the time they have. Sometimes that means they worry about sacrificing precious class time for students to engage with content in a way that allows for a more differentiated...