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Gene Tavernetti
May 5, 20152 min read
Effective Review is Not Telling Again, but Asking Again
While designing a lesson with a very good high school ELA teacher we got to the Review portion of the lesson. Responding to the...
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Gene Tavernetti
Apr 28, 20152 min read
Yada, Yada, Yada
One of my favorite Seinfeld episodes was "The Yada Yada” episode. The premise of the show was people would be telling a story and leave...
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Gene Tavernetti
Apr 21, 20153 min read
Providing Teachers Feedback in the Art and Science of Instruction
Recently I watched a portion of an interview of Nanci Atwell, the teacher who won the Varkey Foundation’s $1 million prize as the Global...
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Randall Olson
Apr 15, 20152 min read
Celebrate Your Journey
All schools, as well as all classrooms, are busy enterprises. There are the daily issues, the weekly schedules, the semester goals, and...
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Gene Tavernetti
Apr 8, 20153 min read
TOTS: Has Your District Been Infected?
Is your staff suffering from Trainer of Trainers Syndrome (TOTS)? What is TOTS: The disappointment/discouragement felt by administration...
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Carin Contreras
Mar 10, 20152 min read
Clarity: The Key to Common Core
In my office I had a sign above my desk that read, “Clarity Precedes Competence”. During the three years I occupied that office, in my...
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Janae Tovar
Feb 28, 20153 min read
Close Reading: How Many Guiding Questions?
When I search the internet for Close Reading planning tools I wonder how many teachers are actually accessing these resources which are...
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Janae Tovar
Feb 10, 20152 min read
When a Checklist Won't Do the Job
“My students do Close Reading every day at the start of the day. It has really been a great routine for my class”. In a room full of...
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Gene Tavernetti
Feb 6, 20152 min read
Who needs this lesson? Everyone
“Checking for Understanding” has become a misunderstood educational catch phrase. The one thing that can be agreed upon is that “CFU” is...
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Gene Tavernetti
Jan 21, 20152 min read
'What Did I Miss?' How to Tell Effective Stories
Do you have a favorite TV show? Downton Abby? Breaking Bad? The Wire? What all these shows have in common is the serial telling of a...
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Gene Tavernetti
Jan 6, 20152 min read
Must Teaching Really Change in the 21st Century?
Maybe I am just a cranky old man, or maybe I do not understand what others are talking about, or maybe both. I recently read an article...
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Randall Olson
Nov 13, 20142 min read
What Should Be the Core of the Common Core?
As all new attempts at curriculum reform, the Common Core has generated its’ share of criticism. Looking back at Whole Language, New...
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Gene Tavernetti
Nov 12, 20142 min read
Why Parents Are Frustrated
This is the second installment in the series, What are we doing to ourselves? Over the past several weeks parents, college educated...
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tovarjanae
Oct 24, 20142 min read
What are We Doing to Ourselves?
This is first in a series of blogs about how our baby-bathwater/forest-trees mentalities are making us crazy. One of the ways students...
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tovarjanae
Oct 14, 20142 min read
Modeling Thinking
Q: How do I get my students to be meta-cognitive? It is difficult for my students to explain their thinking. A: Nearly all of us have a...
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tovarjanae
Sep 15, 20142 min read
I Have Seen This Movie Before
Let me tell you how this latest educational movie, “Effective Instruction in the Common Core,” ends. The movie ends with a predictable...
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tovarjanae
Sep 9, 20142 min read
Be the Boss
With the implementation of the Common Core Standards the publishers are at it again. Materials are merely being relabeled as “For Common...
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tovarjanae
Sep 7, 20141 min read
Adequate Teacher Training
An article published in Education Week, August 14, 2014, reports teachers feel inadequately prepared for Common Core, even after...
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tovarjanae
Aug 15, 20142 min read
The Research Supporting TESS (part 2)
A continuation of The Research Supporting TESS (part 1) The second great influence on the development of what we now know as direct...
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tovarjanae
Aug 15, 20142 min read
The Research Supporting TESS (part 1)
Often, when doing teacher training in direct instruction, we are asked about the research behind the model. It is an honest question...
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