We at TESS attempt to provide relevant, up to date information and opinions on topics that impact teaching and learning.   Our blog posts are inspired by events that transpired during recent work at school sties.  At several school sites, in different districts, the importance of ch...

There a lots and lots of online forums, services, etc. that provide teachers with sample lessons.  In this article I will use the term lesson to apply to any planned classroom activity. 

Some of the lessons are videos of actual lessons being taught to actual students.  This make...

While designing a lesson with a very good high school ELA teacher we got to the Review portion of the lesson.  Responding to the essential question for the review components of the lesson, “What needs to be reviewed for this lesson?”

The teacher said, “I have been reviewing literary...

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 out the most important parts of the story by inserting the phrase “yada yada yada” instead of the details. 

For example,...

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 Teacher of the Year. The teacher was asked what advice she would give young people who wanted to enter the teaching profession.  The teacher said...

Is your staff suffering from Trainer of Trainers Syndrome (TOTS)? 

What is TOTS: The disappointment/discouragement felt by administration and teachers when professional development presented to implement an important initiative by using in-house district staff does not have the exp...

“Checking for Understanding” has become a misunderstood educational catch phrase. The one thing that can be agreed upon is that “CFU” is checking if there is understanding of what has been taught. The misunderstanding lies in the relationship between the intention, the response, and...

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 story over several episodes.  If you miss an episode you find yourself wondering, “Who is that character?” or “What happened to so and so?”  

A we...

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 in which the author stated that teachers must change their “delivery systems” when teaching the new Common Core Standards. The reason teachers need...

This is the second installment in the series, What are we doing to ourselves? 

Over the past several weeks parents, college educated parents, exasperated college educated parents, angry and exasperated college educated parents, have been asking, “What is common core?” and “Why am I...