What does it take to create a classroom environment in which students take the initiative in their learning and teachers can let go of the 'exhaustive hyper control' that so often leads to burnout? Miriam Plotinsky has written an engaging, honest and practical book that offers a pathway for teachers who want to make this happen. In this interview, we discuss four stages that Plotinsky identifies as crucial to increasing student autonomy: a teacher mindset shift, the development of deeper relationships, planning for meaningful engagement and choice-based, hands-off instruction. 

While informed by research, Hover Less, Teach More: How to Stop Micromanaging Your Secondary Classroom (Norton, 2022) draws strongly on Plotinsky's school-based experience as a teacher and instructional specialist and leaves behind academic jargon. It addresses essential questions in classroom teaching practice in a pithy way that will speak to time-poor teachers seeking fresh ideas.

Miriam Plotinsky is an instructional specialist with Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland, and the author of Teach More, Hover Less: How to Stop Micromanaging Your Secondary Classroom. Also a National Board Certified Teacher and certified administrator, she lives in Silver Spring, Maryland. On Twitter: @MirPloMCPS

Alice Garner is a historian, teacher and performer with a PhD from the University of Melbourne, Australia.

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