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Steve Kuninsky is one of our twelve Cohort 3 Teach Like a Champion Fellows. His cohort began working with our team in December 2022 and just presented their final projects in January. Steve’s final project explored the use of FASE Reading in high school Chemistry at the Gwinnett School of Mathematics, Science, and Technology. If you are interested in becoming a TLAC Fellow or know someone who might be a good fit, applications for our fourth cohort are open and available here: and are due by May 30, 2025.��

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In order to become better readers, students need to read, and this is why I chose to study FASE Reading in Chemistry for my Fellows project. FASE reading is a systematic approach to having students read out loud and follow along as others read. The goal is to encourage reading that is Fluent, Accountable, Social, and Expressive.����

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For years, I would ask my AP Biology students to read their science textbooks in preparation for class. I was consistently frustrated by the lack of compliance and success with what I thought was a very simple request.��

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It turns out my request wasn’t actually so simple. I was asking students to read a college level textbook, understand concepts addressed in the text, and come to class with an understanding of those concepts. At some point, I started wondering if I was asking them to demonstrate mastery of a skill on which they had yet to develop proficiency.��

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In order to successfully make meaning from any text, students must read with fluency.�� And in order to become fluent readers, they need to practice reading �� something they typically don’t do enough of on their own, especially in science classes. What I needed was some way to help my students practice reading fluently in a way that held them accountable to participate, provided effective feedback, and modeled what fluent reading looks like.����

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In October 2023, I had the opportunity to attend the TLAC Reading Reconsidered Workshop. I had already experimented with FASE on my own, and this workshop inspired and equipped me to deepen my use of this technique. I had recently shifted from teaching AP Biology to Chemistry, which is a 9th grade course. FASE seemed like a great method for working on reading skills with my freshmen, who I knew would be expected to read a college level Biology textbook the following year.������

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What I love most about FASE is that it provides a low pressure/low stakes environment in which students can practice reading while receiving immediate feedback. Those who aren’t reading follow along, listen, and hear feedback offered to their peers.����

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Here’s a clip of the first time I used FASE Reading in my class back in August:��

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Planning and preparation are key to successful use of FASE. Prior to implementing FASE, explain to your students how they are expected to participate.�� The video of my roll out is provided here for reference. One of the most important points to make is that mistakes are normal, expected, and ok �� Reinforce that Culture of Error.��

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When preparing a text for FASE:����

Plan reading sections and identify who will read each section in advance. Mark your copy of the text to indicate when you will transition between readers.����Keep reading durations short, but variable.��Keep readers unpredictable. Avoid going in a specific order that allows students to predict the next reader.����Intentionally match students to a text. Especially for struggling readers, look to provide a section that will challenge but not overwhelm them.����Identify what section(s) you will read to model fluency for your students �� this is called bridging.����

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Here’s the text that I marked up for this first instance of FASE Reading in class. Note that the first sentence is marked for bridging (where I read to model fluency), and slashes indicate where I planned to transition between readers. Questions to ask after certain sentences are written on the document to help me check for understanding of students�� comprehension. I preselect students to read and keep a list of their names on a post-it note; this helps me ensure that I hear a multitude of voices across the classroom, and I can use my knowledge of students to determine which portion of the text I want them to read.����

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Perhaps at this point, you’re wondering how we got here. Some people think that students aren’t okay with reading out loud together. Right before the clip above, I gave a quick Roll Out of FASE Reading. I told students the purpose of the system and how they should expect to be invited to read and what they should do while peers read.����

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See my Roll Out of FASE Reading here:��

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My biggest takeaway is when reading out loud becomes a regular part of class, when mistakes are normalized, and when successes are celebrated, FASE can become a community building experience.�� Your students will feel a sense of enjoyment and belonging as you work together with the common goal of reading fluency.����

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Want to bring FASE Reading to your campus or learn more about Science of Reading? Check out:����

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The Teach Like a Champion Guide to the Science of Reading: Translating Research to Reignite Joy and Meaning in the Classroom by Doug Lemov, Erica Woolway, and Colleen Driggs, addresses the pressing challenges educators face in effectively incorporating the Science of Reading into their instruction once students already know how to decode. By offering actionable guidance grounded in seven evidence-based principles, this book helps teachers elevate their instructional practices and better prepare students to be lifelong readers and thinkers. Coming out in late July! Preorder your copy .����

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Plug and Plays: Check out our FASE Reading Plug and Play, a fully-scripted professional development session including the PowerPoint slides, videos, handout, and talking points .����

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TLAC Online: Teachers can study Ways of Reading, including FASE Reading, in these 15-minute teacher-facing modules that include video, quick reading, and practice .��

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It’s not this��

Dr. Bob Arnold, Gerald J. and Dorothy R. Friedmans Chair in Palliative Care and Vice Chair for Professional Development at Mount Sinai’s Brookdale Department of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine, and Dr. Rene Claxton, Director of Palliative Care Undergraduate and Graduate Medical Education at UPMC, are two of our twelve Teach Like a Champion Fellows from cohort 3. For their final projects. Bob and Rene studied Cold Call in the medical educator setting. They shared the following brief summary of their project!��

If you are interested in becoming a TLAC Fellow or know someone who might be a good fit, applications for our fourth cohort are open and available here: and are due by May 30, 2025.��

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Cold Calling in Medical Education��

For decades, medical educators have employed questioning as a teaching strategy. Senior doctors quiz learners, asking them questions until they do not know the answer and then moving on to a more senior member of the team. The focus is building on knowledge deficits.1 While learners felt this practice known as “pimping�� (a gendered term for a demeaning practice) was a rite of passage, it did not cultivate psychological safety and its impact on learning is unclear. In the era of physician wellness, some educators called for the elimination of this form of questioning practice.2��

Teach Like a Champion Fellows and physicians, Bob and Rene, honed in on the dissonance between their experience of pimping and their observation of exceptionally skilled educators employing questioning strategically to ensure voice equity, demonstrate loving accountability and ensure learning. They came up with the following differences:��

��Pimping��Cold Calling��Teacher intention��

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Highlight knowledge shortfall��Celebrate knowledge acquisition and maximize voice equity��

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Group dynamics��

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Reinforce hierarchy��

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Create supportive learning environment��

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Pre-requisite knowledge��

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None explicitly provided��

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Provided prior to questioning sequence��

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Learner errors

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Underscores learner knowledge deficit��

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Provides teacher insight into the success of their teaching (allows for checking for understanding)��

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As they brainstormed replacing the antiquated method of pimping with Cold Calling, they agreed on several core steps:����

1. Start by outlining the rationale for cold call and distinguishing it from pimping in a short roll out speech. In Rene’s roll out for the first day of a series of fellows�� education, she makes sure to say: ��

What she’s doing��

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I’m going to call on people even if their hands aren’t raised��

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Why she’s doing it��

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Helps us gauge how good of job we are doing teaching…to help us stay engaged…what we pay attention to is what we learn��

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What to do if a learner doesn’t have the right answer��

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It’s okay if you don’t know the answer. That means you’re learning…that’s why you’re here �� just say pass��

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2. Carefully craft and place Cold Call questions in the lesson to set students up for success. Don’t call on someone as a punishment or to call out that they were distracted. To ensure learners have pre-requisite knowledge, assign pre-reading prior to the class session. Use Wait Time to give the students time to think about a thoughtful answer. Use formative language by starting cold call questions with low-stakes phrases like, “Who can start us off?”�� ��

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In this example, Bob planned a Turn and Talk before a Cold Call to help learners teach each other (increase motivation) and feel more confident in their responses. He transitions from the Turn and Talk to the Cold Call using low stakes phrasing by directing the group, “We’re going to go from team Becca to team Courtney and see how we do.”����

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3. Positively frame the Cold Call practice by repeatedly setting expectations that mistakes are part of learning and respond to mistakes with supportive phrases such as, “You’re 80% there�� or “Who can build on that?�� When the answer is wrong, use it as an opportunity for the group to learn together by using phrases like, “That is a common mistake that we can all learn from.�� These phrases maintain accountability for learning while enhancing psychological safety. Learners are more excited to contribute when they know their answers will be taken seriously and used to promote their learning.����

In Bob and Rene’s experience, medical students reported high satisfaction with Cold Calling �� the key was making sure teachers perform the technique effectively–setting it up carefully and making it safe which allowed students to bring their best answers and appreciate what they do know.��

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References��

An example of pimping from the television show ER: Chen DR, Priest KC. Pimping: a tradition of gendered disempowerment.��BMC Med Educ. 2019;19(1):345. doi:��

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Want to learn more?����

Join us for our remote Engaging Academics in the Medical Educator Setting (four 90 minute remote sessions on May 22nd, May 29th, June 5th, and June 12th). Bob and Rene will be co-facilitating with the TLAC Team! Learn more and register .����

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We love to share examples of great teaching on the TLAC blog–especially great teaching that demonstrates core principles of cognitive psychology in action. If you follow the learning science at all you’re probably familiar with the importance of Retrieval Practice: how critical it is to bring previous content back into working memory so students remember it.

We’ve recently added this beautiful example of Retrieval Practice to our library. It’s from Kerrie Tinson’s English classroom at Windsor High School and Sixth Form in Halesowen, England.

Kerrie’s students are reading Macbeth and she starts her lesson with a Smart Start that focuses on Retrieval Practice�� a series of questions that asks students to review and reflect on things they learned in the first scenes of the play.

��We love how Kerrie asks students to write the answers to her questions–this causes all students to answer–universalizing the retrieval.�� We also love how familiar students are with the routine of starting with retrieval. This not not only makes the Retrieval Practice more efficient and easier to use but it socializes them to conceptualize Retrieval Practice as a great way to study on their own.

As students answer questions, Kerrie circulates and takes careful notes. This allows her both understand what students know and don’t know–you can see that she’s added one question to address a common misunderstanding–and also to Cold Call students to give good answers, which expedites the retrieval, making it efficient and pace-y.

But Kerrie doesn’t just rely on simple retrieval. She often asks students to “elaborate��: to connect what they are thinking about to other details from the play. For example, when a student recalls that Macbeth was a traitor, she asks “Why was that important?�� The connections that come from elaboration build–schema–stronger connected memories that cause student’s knowledge to be connected and meaningful.

We also love the way she ends the session–by pointing out a couple of key concepts–that Macbeth is Impatient and eager�� that are especially important and that everyone should have in their notes.

All in all its great stuff and we are grateful to Kerri and Windsor High School for sharing the footage with us!

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Engaged, attentive students learning to read productively

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In our forthcoming book The Teach Like a Champion Guide to the Science of Reading, Colleen Driggs, Erica Woolway and I discuss the overlooked importance of shared oral reading of rich and complex literature in book form.

This is a critical part of reading instruction for several reasons.

1) It builds student fluency, which is critically overlooked. If students can’t read , their working memory will be engaged in the task of figuring out the words and will not be available for meaning making.�� Oral reading practice is critical, especially when it builds prosody, the ability to imbue text with meaning as students read it. Students learn what text sounds like from hearing models and this then influences the way they read silently.

2) It brings the story to life in a group setting. Students connect with the book via that shared experience of reading it aloud together. THis makes reading class more meaningful and increases their motivation to read.

3) They learn to sustain focus and attention while reading longer segments of text without break or distraction.

4) They are exposed to books and read them cover to cover, a topic I .�� Books are long-form complex arguments in which ideas are developed through deep reflection. A protagonist never thinks and believes at the end of the book what he or she thought and believed at the beginning. In an age when social media has normalized the “hot take”–one can understand a complex issue in a few seconds–the book is the antidote.

With that in mind here’s a beautiful example of what the activity of reading aloud as a class can look like.

In this video Christine Torres reads aloud from Lois Lowry’s Number the Stars with her fifth grade students.

Notice how much fluency practice there is for students, but also how Christine combines this with her own beautiful (and carefully prepared) oral reading. Students develop a clear mental model of what the text should sound like. And it comes to life so powerfully, with students experiencing it together.�� Notice also how student attention is focus and maintained via the shared experience of reading together. Students sustain their attentional focus in part because everyone around them is also doing so.

It’s a beautiful and joyful thing and, happily, much more valuable to young readers than a 45 minute discussion of the main idea of a text excerpt students have no connection to and little background knowledge about.

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Since 2016, one of our most exciting projects here at Team TLAC has been our Teaching Fellowship, which has allowed us to learn from champion teachers and share their expertise through our workshops and materials with schools all over the world. We are excited to announce that we are opening applications for our fourth cohort of TLAC Fellows!����

The goal of our Fellows program has always been to recognize, support, and develop outstanding classroom teachers. In our initial launch of the program, we described the purpose like this:����

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We want to create incentives for great teachers to become even better teachers. That is, we want ways for them to be ambitious and remain in the classroom, to be ambitious about being a classroom teacher, rather than having entering administration be the only way to be ambitious.��

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And we want to encourage very, very good teachers to focus on getting even better- to strive to become classroom artisans who love and are fascinated by the mastery of the craft. We want them to love deep study of teaching and importantly, to influence their peers though the excellence of their daily teaching and their passion for the craft- their growth mindset, if you will. We think great schools need people like that. And being who we are of course we also want to learn not just from but with people like that- study them and their work but also study the craft generally alongside them.��

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The time is right for a program like this one. Since 2020, teachers have been required to adapt to a constantly changing educational landscape, and students have returned to school with increasingly urgent learning needs. Across the country and around the world, schools are struggling to attract and keep top teachers in classrooms. This is our opportunity to honor the incredibly hard and important work teachers are doing.��

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Of course, our team benefits tremendously from the Fellows program. Not only have we been inspired and energized by the work that our Fellows have done in their schools, but we’ve gained invaluable video and reflections about the nuances of various TLAC techniques. Many of our former Fellows are featured in TLAC 3.0, including in our new Keystone videos (extended videos, 10 minutes or so, intended to show a longer arc of a teacher’s lesson where they use multiple techniques in combination). We still have strong relationships with former Fellows who continue to contribute to our team and help us learn. Over the next few months on the blog, we’ll be shining a spotlight on Fellows from our recently concluded third cohort to share some of the work and learning they’ve done during their time in the program (see the end of this blog post for their names and independent study areas).��

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If you are a teacher who is looking to be valued and celebrated for your work while being pushed to grow in your own practice to become even better for your students and colleagues, we invite you to apply and learn alongside us!����

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Cohort 4 Details:����

The program will run from January 2026-January 2028, for which Fellows must remain in the classroom.��The first 18 months will involve active programming (bi-monthly remote and some in-person meetings with the team, classroom filming, video analysis, etc.) and the final 6 months will be an independent project.��A $10,000 stipend (paid over the course of two years, provided that Fellows remain in the classroom and complete the independent project)��

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For more detailed information and to see the application, visit our Fellows page here: ����

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Here’s a list of our most recent cohort of TLAC Fellows, along with their grade band and subject, and their area of study for their independent project.����

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Ben Katcher, HS History, Implementing Knowledge Organizers in the Classroom����Beth Greenwood, MS Science, TLAC Techniques in the UK��Bob Arnold and Rene Claxton, Medical Education, Engaging Academics in the Medical Education Setting��Casey Clementson, MS Orchestra, What to Do Cycle in Middle School Orchestra��Christina Mercado, MS ELA, Habits of Discussion Implementation and Maintenance��Diana Bentley, HS ELA, Cultivating Facilitator Expertise Across the School��Doug Doblar, MS Math, Supporting Thinking Classrooms with TLAC Techniques �� Read more here: ����Jamarr McCain, MS Math, Adult PD on Knowledge Organizers��Kathleen Lavelle, HS Science, Supporting Students with IEPs in General Practical Science��Rockyatu Otoo, ES SPED, Increasing Belonging and Collaboration with Colleagues through Culturally Responsive Lesson Prep Checklist��Steve Kuninsky, HS Science, FASE Reading and Accountable Independent Reading in Chemistry��

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Reading aloud to students creates the music of text for them��

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In mid-March we’ll be in Denver .

The workshop will incorporate content for our new book, .

One of the themes of the book is bringing the text back into the center of the classroom. When we read together, from a book, during class, often aloud, we can bring the text to life and make the story compelling, we can socialize students to sustain their attention in text, we can practice fluency if students read, and model it if we read to them.

Check out these beautiful moments of Pritesh Raichura’s science class reading aloud—excerpted from the outstanding Step Lab documentary for example.

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Or this montage—from the book—of Spencer Davis, Will Beller, Emily DiMatteo, Jo Facer and Rob De Leon reading aloud with their classes.

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Read Aloud, then, is a literacy tool that shouldn’t be overlooked, even among older students, we note in The Teach Like a Champion Guide to the Science of Reading.

Some other key benefits of doing what we see Spencer, Will, Emily, Jo and Rob doing.

Read Aloud can be an opportunity to share in, relish, and savor the beauty of books—one of the most joyful parts of the students�� and teachers�� day. It is also more critical to building fluency and preparing students to comprehend rich, complex texts than we originally understood.

A good Read Aloud allows students to access a text well beyond what they can read on their own, enabling them to familiarize themselves with more complex vocabulary, rhythm, and patterns of syntax.

Read Aloud also has the benefit of speed. A teacher reading a book aloud to students can cover more ground, more quickly, than the students themselves could if they were reading on their own, especially if the text is complex and challenging. In that case, the rate of exposure to key ideas, background knowledge, rare words, and technical vocabulary is accelerated.

Teacher Read Aloud also provides a model of fluent expressive reading for students. It helps students hear what language sounds like when read aloud with mastery and develop a mental model.

Developing such a mental model, will not only inform how students read aloud but also how they read silently. One of the core outcomes we seek as reading teachers is a sort of cognitive afterimage in our students when they read silently. We want their internal reading voice to be characterized by expression and prosody that bring the book to life during independent reading, thus enhancing meaning and perhaps pleasure.

Some details that we love about the clips in the montage.

90/110: Good read aloud is of done at 90% of your natural pace—providing students a bit more room to hear and process the words and information clearly but not so slow as to lose the story—and 110% expression—to build that mental model of expressive meaning making. You can hear that for sure in all of the clipsCheck for Attention: We want students locked in and listening and often reading aloud themselves. So it’s important that they have texts out and are following along. Quick call and response checks that they are with you can help. Spencer, for example, pauses to say “We were specifically told��.�� And students respond “not to go past,�� proving they are locked in. Rob does something similarCirculate as you read: This lets you get near to students to observe them more closely and interact with them subtly if they need direction. It also somehow makes the reading a bit more dynamic.Feed knowledge: Emily very quickly explains that the phrase “in league�� means “teamed up with.�� Jo asks students to clarify who ‘her father�� was in Othello’s soliloquy.Shape Attention. It’s often helpful to give students something to “look for�� such as “be on the look out for ways in which Squealer is scapegoating Snowball.��

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We’ll spend two days “close reading�� dozens more videos of teachers in action at the Reading workshop in Denver. Come join us!�� Details here:

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The challenge is real��

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I’m pretty cautious about “group work.��

It can be beneficial but the “can be�� should be in italics because it has endemic problems that are often over-looked. One of which is the fact that it can be really hard to ensure that everyone is working, thinking and benefitting.

The happy buzz of voices in the classroom, just far enough away that you can’t really hear what they are saying, can be a recipe for happy collusion: I will let you go off to the corners of the room and we will both pretend the optimal case is occurring.

So I was very happy to read a by my friend, colleague and TLAC Fellow (see below) Doug Doblar of Bay Creek Middle School in Gwinnett County, Georgia, that uses the TLAC technique Cold Call to solve some of group work’s endemic problems.��

Here’s how Doug describes the endemic problems of group work:

One of the challenges that requires constant vigilance �� is assuring that��every��member of a group thinks and learns during the day’s thinking task.�� There are quite a few ways this can go wrong, I’ve found:

One or two students in the group form��a quick understanding of the new topic��and race��forward, leaving the other member or members of the group in the dustOne or two students in the group do��not��form a very quick understanding of the topic, but are afraid to say so, so they feign an understanding, allowing the other member or members of the group to similarly leave them in the dustOne or two students in a group “aren’t feeling it today,�� so they don’t participate, feign an understanding, and get left in the dust

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Or some other iteration of this situation where part of the group is off to the races while another part of the group is stuck at the starting line, willingly or not.

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Perfectly put. I love an advocate for an idea who is keenly aware of the potential downside!

Doug advises addressing these challenges through a variety of tools, which is supremely practical and realistic. A complex challenge in the classroom is rarely solved by one tool alone.

First Doug advises building strong routines and setting clear expectations that address the pitfalls.

But Doug also advises using Cold Call and I think this application of the technique is brilliant.

As you walk from group to group, he advises you should Cold Call students who are at risk of non-engagement.

Here’s how he describes it:

Cold calling is my go-to technique during thinking tasks when I’m worried that a member of a group might be getting left behind, willingly or unwillingly.

As I��actively observe��during thinking task time, it usually isn’t too hard to spot these students.�� They stand a little farther from the group, maybe don’t face the whiteboard, rarely have the marker, and might be ones I already know are “not feeling it�� today and who feel that their bad mood should excuse them from learning and participating.�� They’re also ones with personalities who make them regular disengage-ers who I’m always aware of.

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As Doug circulates he finds these students and Cold Calls them in one of three ways, which I will let him describe:

Directly asking a student to do the next “thin slice��: Du I’ll often just show up to a group and ask a student who I’m afraid might be disengaged to lead the next example or to explain a prior example to me.�� “Bryce, will you lead the next one?”����or��“Maddie, will you explain this last one to me?�� “What’s he/she talking about? : When I come to a group whose leader is doing great of explaining thinking and trying to make sure the group is following along, but I’m worried that a member of that group is either disengaged or feigning an understanding to keep things moving, I’ll often just slide up to that student and ask “what’s he/she talking about?”����It’s a quick and easy cold call that holds the student accountable for explaining the leader’s example. �� ​What’s he/she doing?��: This version of cold calling works just like the��“what’s he/she talking about”��one, except I use it when the group’s leader��isn’t��doing as good of a job.�� Sometimes I’ll catch the student with the marker silently and independently working a slice on his or her own with just the other members of the group watching.�� Usually this is ok, but I’ll frequently slide in and ask another group member “what’s he/she doing?”��while it’s happening to make sure that the rest of the group actually understands what’s going on.��

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As if that’s not helpful enough, Doug has posted videos of himself doing this and I’ve made a short montage of them here:

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Doug wraps by talking about how important it is to keep the Cold Calls positive and how that helps�� build what we sometimes call ‘loving accountability.��

They know I might move over at any moment and cold call one of them, and��not a single one looks anxious about it…the students understood and they were proud to be able to explain that to me��. Accountability is hard to build into any instructional setting, but once it is assumed, kids really take ownership of their learning most of the time.��

It’s great stuff and there’s plenty more insight in Doug’s full post, which you can read .

Want to know more?

Check out:

Doug’s Blog: Doug writes beautifully about implementing Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics and how TLAC techniques support that framework. He provides practical advice and video. To read more, visit his blog here:

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TLAC Fellows: Doug is one of twelve of our talented TLAC Fellows �� Cohort 3. We’re opening the application for Cohort 4 on February 18th! All application materials and more information about the program can be found here:

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Upcoming Engaging Academics Workshop: Interested in exploring Cold Call with us? We’re in LA on February 27-28 for an Engaging Academics workshop where we’ll study high engagement strategies like Everybody Writes, Cold Call, Means of Participation, and Lesson Preparation. Join us here:

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In our forthcoming book on the Science of Reading, Colleen Driggs, Erica Woolway and I discuss the importance of attention to reading.

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Short version: if nothing else, the smartphone, having fractured the attention of millions, has taught us that attention is malleable. This is especially important in reading, which places such intense demands on students�� ability to sustain periods of focus attentiveness.

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The flip side, we argue, is that by attending to attention in reading classrooms—by bringing the act of reading back into the classroom where we can shape the experience of reading for students–could help rebuild students�� attentional capacity. To quote our own forthcoming book:

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If we build a habit in which reading is done with focus and concentration and even, to go a step further, with empathy and connectedness, and if we do that regularly for a sustained period of time, our brains will get better at reading that way—more familiar with and attuned to such attentional states�� We can re-build attention and empathy in part by causing students to engage in stretches of sustained and fully engaged reading. One thing this implies is more actual reading in the classroom with more attention paid by teachers to how that reading unfolds. Attending to how we read—thinking of the reading we do in the classroom as “wiring”—gives us an opportunity to shape the reading experience intentionally for students.

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In light of this is was struck by this study by Christina Brown and colleagues: COGNITIVE ENDURANCE AS HUMAN CAPITAL.

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“We focus specifically on cognitive endurance: the ability to sustain effortful mental activity over a continuous stretch of time,�� the authors write and what they find is stunning.

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“Using a field experiment with 1,600 Indian primary school students, we randomly increase the amount of time students spend in sustained cognitive activity during the school day,�� the authors write. Doing so, they find, “markedly improves cognitive endurance: students show 22% less decline in performance over time when engaged in intellectual activities.��

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“This indicates that the experience of effortful thinking itself increases the ability to accumulate traditional human capital.��

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One of the key benefits good schooling can provide is the ability to sustain deep, focused attention. Acquired via the habit of being caused to engage via deep, focused attention.

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Sadly the authors find that access to such environments correlates to wealth: “Globally and in the US, the poor exhibit cognitive fatigue more quickly than the rich across field settings; they also attend schools that offer fewer opportunities to practice thinking for continuous stretches.��

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So two takeaways from this very important study.

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In reading classrooms its urgently important to cause students to engage in focused reading for sustained blocks of time as a matter of habit. If you’re interested in this, there’s a whole chapter in our forthcoming book about harvesting attention in reading classrooms. Among other things it means bringing shared reading back to the heart of the classroom.

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It also means recommitting to orderly schools, something many educators have sadly abandoned in recent years. One of the things you need to be able to practice “cognitive endurance�� is reliable and predictable quiet in which to focus your attention and stay on task without disruption. There’s lots of research on the frequency of low-level disruptions in most classrooms, I would only argue that it is “low-level�� only in the level of noise it creates. It’s consequences are far from small.

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“Shea, you mentioned the word “equal”��

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In a few weeks I’ll be in Miami with my colleague Hannah Solomon talking about techniques to Check for Understanding (There’s still room to join us: ).��

One of the things we’ll talk about is the power of Active Observation–the idea that building systems to harvest data and observations about student thinking during independent work is one of a teacher’s most powerful tools.

Here’s a great example of what that looks like and one reason why it can be so powerful, courtesy of Laura Brettle, a Year 6 (5th grade) teacher at Manor Way Primary in Halesowen, England.

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Laura starts by giving her students the task of describing the relationship between two fractions, which are equivalent.

They’ve got two minutes to answer in a “silent solo stop and jot.�� Here Laura is cue-ing a familiar routine. Whenever students think in writing it’s called a stop and jot. Having a name for it reminds them that it’s a familiar routine and familiarity is important- when a procedure is familiar to the point of routine, students can complete the task with no additional load on working memory. All their thinking is on the math, rather than the logistics of what Laura has asked them to do.

But Laura has some great routines here too! As her students write she circulates and takes careful notes on her clipboard.�� She’s able to spot students who need a bit of prompting and to take note of students whose work is exemplary. Because she has notes on what many of her students think, she’ll be able to start the discussion intentionally.

“During the active observation,�� my colleague Alonte Johnson-James noted when we watched the video with our team, “Laura monitors student thinking/writing in her first lap. As she launches into the second lap she begins to drop in feedback. First, to push a student to make their answer better and more precise. Additionally, she challenges students who might have finished early to push their thinking to identify additional equivalent fractions. She also recognizes where students struggle and uses intentional, appreciative Cold Calls of Shea and Joanna to explain how and why 5/6 and 10/12 are equivalent.��

And of course she does that in the most appreciative of ways.

First she asks students to track Shea: “Shea, you mentioned the word equal.”�� In doing so she’s let Shea know that the Cold Call is a result of her good work�� she’s done well and this is her reward. And she also tells Shea what part of her answer she wants her to talk about.�� It’s a great way to honor students and make them feel seen for their hard work and to make Cold Call fell like an honor.

But you can see that Laura’s notes were really comprehensive. She also credits Finn for using the word double in his answer too.

Side note for one of my favorite moves–she magnifies the positive peer to peer symbol of the hand gestures students give to show they agree–“I can see people appreciating…�� this helps Shea to see how much her peers approve of her good work!

Next Laura goes to Joanna. “What I liked about your answer is that you showed the calculation��. we know it’s double but what calculation did you use?��

Another super-positive Cold Call that makes a student feel honored for her work. And a very efficient discussion of the problem in which Jen has let students discuss the key points but avoided wasting any time.

We often refer to this as “hunting not fishing��: while students work, Laura “hunts�� for useful answers and tracks them. When she calls on students she can be ultra-strategic and efficient, rather than calling on students and “fishing�� for a good answer: that is, merely hoping that they’ll have something on-point to say.

Here simple but beautifully implemented systems for gathering data during independent work allow her to work efficiently and honor the best of student thinking.

If you’re as inspired by Laura’s work as we are (Thank you, Laura!!) please come join us in Miami to study this and other techniques for getting the most out of your classroom!

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School leadership gold in this interview with Max

Over the past year we’ve been learning from 40 schools in Walsall and Sandwell England. These schools, located outside of Birmingham in areas of unusually high economic deprivation, were chosen to participate in a Priority Education Improvement Areas (PEIA) grant to increase self-regulation and meta-cognition (and therefore academic and social outcomes) in students.�� ��

, the visionary and organizer of the program, reached out to us to provide a training and support, and we’re thrilled to have been a part of it and thrilled to share that the initial results have been really encouraging. ��

Together with local education leaders, we’ve had the opportunity to visit all 40 schools, train leadership teams on Engaging Academics and Check for Understanding techniques, and study video of teachers implementing the techniques in their classrooms. From the video study alone, we’ve been lucky enough to cut 17 videos that we’ve been using in training, several of which you’ve read about on this blog and for example.

In June, we started our second round of visits, to assess growth in meta-cognition and self-regulation, and we were delighted that of the 16 schools we visited, 13 of them were implementing techniques to positive effect.�� Obviously the real evidence will be in the form of assessment outcomes, which we are very optimistic about (there are lots of very promising leading indicators, including Goldsmith Primary School, part of Windsor Academy Trust being , one of 400 schools chosen internationally) but in the meantime we’ll be writing more about what we’ve learned, and we couldn’t wait to share this interview with Max Wakeman, the Head Teacher at Goldsmith, where we taped two of the outstanding lessons we shared above.

In this interview, Max reflects on his school’s success in our work together, he talks about the importance of creating a strong Culture of Error for his teachers �� and about showing love for students by holding them to the highest of expectations.

TLAC team-member Hannah Solomon had so much fun talking to Max here �� we know you’ll enjoy learning from him as much as we did!

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