Grab and Go

Infographic: Show Me

Here’s a printable infographic to keep at your desk or at the ready (for when that new teacher next door approaches you for concrete advice)! Show Me is a powerful way to check for understanding and also: to gather data on student mastery.

Two Infographics: STAR/SLANT and Everybody Writes

Class discussions are at their best and most effective when every student actively participates. This Grab & Go provides two infographics that breakdown the “STAR/SLANT” and ”Everybody Writes” techniques from Teach Like a Champion 2.0 – print them out and keep on your desk as a nice reminder of ways to keep your students engaged in academic content. 

6 Tips on How to Write a Definition

Crafting definitions that are both accurate and student-friendly is one of the most challenging and overlooked aspects of vocabulary instruction. This Grab and Go provides six tips to create definitions that are useful, accessible, and accurate.

Five Tips on How to Read Successfully to Your Child

Everyone knows the importance of reading aloud to children, but it can be a daunting task for a lot of parents. Here are some pointers that can help put parents at ease and make it an enjoyable experience that both parent and child can look forward to.

Culture of Error Phrases

As Doug has described frequently in the blog and forthcoming in Chapter 2 of Teach Like a Champion 2.0, your ability to effectively Check For Understanding largely depends on whether or not, you, the teacher, have established a strong Culture of Error—an environment where students feel safe revealing and learning from their mistakes. One of the most effective ways to build this kind of culture is by intentionally planning out what you’ll say to students during your lessons—especially when they make mistakes or take academic risks. 

Make Your Academic Corrections What to Do

What to Do means giving students specific, concrete, observable directions—in sequence—to tell them What to Do, as opposed to what NOT to do. Although often used to help students meet high behavioral expectations, What to Do is also an important tool for supporting students’ academic behaviors. Use the attached worksheet to identify opportunities to clarify and sharpen your expectations for academic tasks when you see students struggling.

100 Phrases for Narrating During Wait Time

Top teachers in high performing urban schools often use Narrated Wait Time to incent and reinforce the specific behaviors that will be most productive to their students during that time. They are teaching even while they are waiting. Here are 100 phrases written by 100 teachers and school leaders at a Teach Like a Champion workshop. Ensure you’ll use one or two of these phrases by scripting them into an upcoming lesson plan.

Infographic: Circulate

Here’s a printable infographic to keep at your desk or at the ready (for when that new teacher next door approaches you for concrete advice)! Circulate is a powerful way to engage students using the tools of affirmation and accountability.

No Opt Out Cueing Tool Kit

One consistency among champion teachers is their vigilance in maintaining the expectation that it’s not OK not to try. One key step in the process is eliminating the option for students of "opting out": muttering "I don’t know" or shrugging impassively when asked a question. How a teacher chooses to respond to a student’s “I don’t know” can be pivotal in the life of a classroom. This month’s Grab and Go resource provides ideas for how to respond effectively.

Positive Framing Examples and Non-Examples

People are motivated by the positive far more than by the negative. Seeking success and happiness will spur stronger action than seeking to avoid punishment. The power of the positive should influence the way you teach. Positive Framing, then, is about framing your interactions— particularly corrections of the academic and behavioral variety—so that they reinforce this larger picture of faith and trust...

Phrases to Build Students' Writing Stamina

Adding Everybody Writes to your lesson is one of the best ways to instantly boost rigor in your classroom. For students to reap the full rewards of this technique, they need to be writing the entire time. This Grab and Go resource helps you anticipate common expressions of struggle – “I’m not sure what to write,” or “I’m already done,” for example– and equips you with at-the-ready phrases to prompt students to continue writing.

Sharpen Up Phrases for
Call and Response

When your students return in the fall, you’ll be concentrating in the first weeks on establishing a positive, engaging, productive academic culture. One technique teachers use to inject energy, maintain focus, emphasize key words or ideas, and support clarity of directions is Call and Response. With Call and Response, the teacher gives a clear cue (verbal and/or nonverbal), and the entire class responds in unison.

Precise Praise Planner

Inevitably at our workshops, we have more content than we can get to. Here’s a simple, powerful planning activity that all teachers can use to increase students’ consistency with and eagerness to meet and exceed expectations. Naming the specific actions a student is taking helps the student to replicate that action in the future and guides others for what to do as well. Precise Praise teaches and motivates. Bonus! This works for spouses and your own kids too.

Six Ideas for Props

What’s that finger-snapping you’re seeing in a Teach Like a Champion video clip—as the class snaps a couple of snaps as one student strives to answer a challenging question? An example of a Prop! Props are a form of public praise for students who demonstrate excellence or exemplify virtues. Build a culture that valorizes achievement and effort in your class (and do it without sacrificing order of "time on task"). This month’s download is a quick cheat sheet of Props. Borrow or adapt from this list of tried-and-true to add joy to any lesson.

Engineering Efficiency with Strong Start

Strong Start, one of the new techniques featured in Teach Like a Champion 2.0., maximizes the time between the moment students walk through the door and when the main lesson begins, building engagement in meaningful work as well as positive and productive student habits. For this month’s Grab and Go resource, we decided to take a photo from our Strong Start Plug and Play on this technique and put it under the microscope...

Fostering a Culture of Error

Last April, the TLAC team visited California where we spent two days with Aspire Public Schools. We worked on creating a strong Culture of Error – a classroom environment that is strategically engineered to encourage students to take academic risks in order to uncover and correct misunderstandings. Michelle Flores sent us a picture of a bulletin board in her classroom that she uses to celebrate students who make and then learn from their mistakes. Thank you, Michelle and Aspire!

Wait Time Cheat Sheet

Giving students time to think before answering questions encourages a higher-quality initial answer instead of the first answer a student can think of. Also, there are several steps necessary to teach and remind your students to use their Wait Time effectively. Charlie Friedman, principal of Nashville Classical Charter School, created a Wait Time Cheat Sheet after noticing that teachers on his team struggled to make Wait Time transparent.

Analyze and Draft Cold Call Prompts

In the forthcoming edition of Teach Like a Champion 2.0, Doug writes, "If I were working with a group of teachers and had to help them make the greatest possible improvements in the rigor, ratio, and level of expectations in their classroom with one technique, the technique I’d choose might well be Cold Call, the practice of calling on students regardless of whether they raise their hands." When executed well, Cold Call enables teachers...

Consequence vs. Correction Case Studies

One of the trickiest aspects of managing behavior and culture is deciding when to give a consequence versus a correction. The question is tough because teachers must decide each scenario on a case-by-case basis and they need to do so swiftly, consistently, and repeatedly. The truth is, sometimes, we’re going to get it wrong. But, if you’ve got guidelines to help yourself make the decision and language at-the-ready...