Creating a Warm and Intellectually Challenging Classroom

A great article for the summer written by Suzy Boss, an education reporter I've been following of late.

This article distills advice from Dorothy M. Steele and Becki Cohn-Vargas, two researchers who've been looking at ways to boost student empowerment in the classroom. The article ends with a checklist that I think I might want to post at the door in my classroom.

"Empowerment" seems like a buzzword, I know, but a few years back, Joe Sicilian did a great 3 session PD on student empowerment that had my mind buzzing for weeks afterward. I borrowed a ton of ideas from that session. Some worked, some didn't, but the students were generally enthusiastic because I was trying something different.

That experience reminds me that this whole "chaotic" classroom thing is something I've been gravitating towards at least half my career here at Curtis. The last two years, for me at least, have been about keeping my eye on the ball, namely the year-end standardized test results that confirm, at least to an outside viewer that whatever changes you've made within the classroom aren't detracting from the educational bottom line. Giving students greater control of lesson content and pacing is all well and good, but the Algebra 2 Regents has a broad range of topics a class needs to work through in a given year.

Boss' article doesn't focus on any particular discipline or subject. It keeps the advice open-ended, so that Geometry teachers and U.S. History teachers find it equally applicable. Again, it's more of a philosophical refresher as you find yourself thinking about the classroom environment you hope to create in the first weeks of school.