Never Work Harder Than Your
Students & Other Principles of
Great Teaching
Jackson, Robyn R. (2009). Never Work Harder Than Your Students &
Other Principles of Great Teaching. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
Principle 7: Never Work Harder Than
Your Students
(Chapter 7 – pp. 170-191) – This
chapter is well worth reading in full.
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We need to be clear about what is our work and
what is the students’ work, and make sure that we do our work and they do
theirs. See this web link for a list which divides the classroom work.
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Our responsibility is to teach and support.
Their responsibility is to learn. We must not solve problems for them but help
them acquire the tools they need to solve the problems on their own.
-
Set up systems so that students are able to do
more on their own. E.g. If we want students to keep organised notes, then we
need to set up a routine for note-making and the way to organise them.
-
Students must be held accountable for doing
their work by having logical consequences.
Try this idea:
We need to be clear about what is our work and
what is the students’ work, and make sure that we do our work and they do
theirs. See this web link for a list which divides the classroom work.
Our responsibility is to teach and support.
Their responsibility is to learn. We must not solve problems for them but help
them acquire the tools they need to solve the problems on their own.
Set up systems so that students are able to do
more on their own. E.g. If we want students to keep organised notes, then we
need to set up a routine for note-making and the way to organise them.
Students must be held accountable for doing
their work by having logical consequences.
Rewards: What really works?
How do you balance your use of rewards and sanctions, and are the rewards you’re using really having a positive effect on student behaviour? Dave Stott provides some practical tips.
Educational Leadership Magazine
The February 2012 edition For Each to Excel is now in the library. The following articles focus on differentiation:
- Teaching to What Students Have in Common by Daniel Willingham and David Daniel. Why effective teachers pay attention to the ways in which all students are the same.
- Preparing Students to Learn Without Us by Will Richardson. Technology leverages students' curiosity to learn whatever whenever.
- Teach Up for Excellence by Carol Ann Tomlinson and Edwin Lou Javius. Seven principles for creating classrooms that give students equal access to excellence.
- Helping Gifted Learners Soar by Susan Rakow. How to optimize the potential of those students who master material quickly.
- Clustered for Success by Dina Brulles and Susan Winebrenner. Cluster groups allow students to work with peers as well as contribute to the whole class.
- All Students Are Artists by Linda Nathan. Arts education provides a model for continual pursuit of improvement.
- Planning for Personalization by William Powell and Ochan Kusuma-Powell. Here's how to shift from teaching facts to teaching concepts in a standards-based curriculum.
- Data, Our GPS by Rich Smith, Marcus Johnson and Karen D. Thompson. A district needed to find out where their students were before it could get somewhere.
- "Just How I Need to Learn It" by Cheryl Becker Dobbertin. Differentiating how students learn is easier when they know their learning targets.
- The Right Fit for Henry by J. Christine Gould, Linda K. Staff and Heather M. Theiss. Did Henry belong in the gifted class even if he had a learning disability?
- Special Topic / Senseless Extravagance, Shocking Gaps by Richard Weissbourd and Trevor Dodge. A race to opulence characterizes affluent schools even as other schools scramble to provide basic supplies.
