Teachers are frequently told to use "research-based strategies." At the same time, they face unreasonable workloads, with inadequate time and resources to engage with the research and evaluate it themselves. In the same professional development workshops that elevate the importance of research, teachers are also told to focus on…

Many students enter upper grades unprepared to make decisions and take charge of their work, especially with writing assignments and organizing their thinking in any written piece. With good intention, many teachers make lots of decisions for students on organization and development a piece of writing. Gallagher and Kittle share how they let…

Susan Moore Johnson, a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and leading scholar on school staffing, highlights research from the Project on the Next Generation of Teachers showing the importance of inclusive leadership and team-based structures in improving teacher recruitment and retention. School context is key in determining…

The author, a district chief academic officer, discusses his immersion into the research on the science reading and how it informed his views on how reading instruction needed to change in his district. He emphasizes the importance of adopting a cohesive curriculum aligned to the research on early reading, particularly in the areas of phonics and…

While collective teacher efficacy has potential to improve teacher practice and student learning, there's a risk this concept will be used to further burden teachers through assuming a positive, confident attitude can overcome all barriers to learning--even without good conditions for teaching in place. France argues that collective efficacy must…

To prepare students for a tech-intensive future, educators cannot hold on to 20th-century learning practices. They must reimagine education and cultivate an updated skill set. Lessons led by caring educators will continue to help students be strong learners and critical thinkers; but "human" skills will equip them to handle an uncertain…

Carol Ann Tomlinson and Michael Murphy explore how educators can create an empathetic school--"a place where our central and shared goal was to understand the experiences and perspectives of those who share our space and making decisions based on what would serve them best."

School leaders rightly tend toward collaboration and consensus-building when it comes to important decisions affecting students. But there are moments when, perhaps to their own surprise, they may find themselves willing to "go to the mat" on an important decision, whether consensus has been reached or not. Smith, a professor and chair…

Teacher-led inquiry cycles--in which small groups of teachers study and address a promise--hold promise as a method of professional development, but only if they receive enough support. In particular, they need access to outside expertise that can help them meaningfully change instructional practices--often a difficult step for teachers working on…

As a principal, Sarah E. Fiarman learned that developing teacher leadership requires more than merely soliciting teacher input. "School leaders," she writes, "need to create a culture in which each professional feels an urgent responsibility to influence the achievement of all students." To promote such a schoolwide leadership…

The design of a classroom space can make a big difference in student behavior and learning. The use of color, sound, light, furniture arrangements and more can help foster community and culture and promote understanding. Dillon discusses some easy ways to transform the classroom space that can help with classroom management.

Planning a lesson that sets all students up to learn successfully involves making a great many decisions about what to do throughout the lesson. To make this planning less overwhelming, the author focuses on a part of lesson planning that doesn't always get much attention: the first 10 to 15 minutes of a lesson. He walks readers through key…

"Data-drive instruction can distort the way reading is taught, harming the students who need high-quality instruction the most," Susan B. Neuman concludes from her research team's two years of observation in nine low-income New York City schools. She describes how some students are reminded that they are "failures" every day by…

All around us are examples of people and organizations with good information making bad decisions. Consider the case of Blockbuster. Less than a decade ago, Blockbuster had 8,000 stores in 17 countries and millions of customers. It was awash in data, including customer surveys that said people disliked going to video stores and hated late fees.…

Riley asserts that some findings of cognitive science conflict with key principles of personalized learning--that students should control the content of their learning and that they should control the pace of their learning. A personalized approach is in conflict with the cognitive science principle that committing key facts in a discipline to…