Have you ever been shocked when your students bomb a unit test after weeks of seemingly locked-in learning? 

Veteran educator Jay McTighe has the ultimate research-backed solution: formative assessment. In the best-case scenario, it’s frequent, quick, and highly attuned to the content and your students. 

“You don’t want to wait till the end to find out, ‘Gosh, I didn’t realize the kids never understood this concept or had this continued skill error,’” says McTighe, an author and assessment expert. “Whatever you’re teaching, you should always be doing very quick checks to see how it’s working.”

Frequent pulse checks midstream are “potentially one of a classroom educator’s most powerful tools to enhance student learning,” according to David Marzano, a leading researcher. They’re also important tools for students to gauge their own progress. The key to getting the best outcomes is *how* you deploy them.

In this episode of School of Practice, we chat with McTighe about how to get the most out of formative assessments, how to choose the right technique for your content and students, how to insert them seamlessly into the flow of instruction, and whether or not they should be graded. Plus, Jay shares his “Vagoo Rule,” a mysterious yet very important tip that you won’t want to miss.

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Did you know there’s a strong connection between the hand and the neural circuitry of the brain? 

As students learn to write letters by hand, they also learn to recognize them more fluently. This letter recognition leads to greater letter-writing fluency, which leads to stronger overall reading development. Handwriting, the research reveals, is in fact a foundational tool for literacy. And as kids get older, the benefits continue, deepening how they process new material and encode learning.

Meanwhile, good handwriting instruction doesn’t require a huge time investment: Brief instructional lessons followed by frequent modeling and feedback for students can slip into all areas of the curriculum throughout the school day, says Brooke MacKenzie, a former elementary teacher and certified reading specialist. “Handwriting practice can and should be quick and dirty,” she says. “It’s not like you need a 20-minute lesson on how to hold your pencil.”

In this episode of School of Practice, MacKenzie chats with us about four fundamental handwriting skills. Plus, she shares her top instructional secrets—from using cursive to help students struggling with print to why Kindergarteners should “talk to their pencils.”

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It’s a tricky (but very common) classroom dilemma: How do you talk about—and normalize—learning accommodations in class without singling anyone out in front of peers? 

Unfortunately, many teachers aren’t trained to have these sensitive conversations, so they’re figuring it out on the fly.

But we’re here to help! In this episode of School of Practice, we chat with Daniel Vollrath, a veteran high school special education teacher, and elementary teacher Jeremiah Kim. They’ll share excellent, teacher-tested tips for talking with individual students (and your whole class) about learning supports in age-appropriate ways, establishing classroom norms that make space for different learning needs, and managing privacy without making disability a taboo topic.

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Are you curious what the latest research reveals about everything from brain breaks to groundbreaking research on AI, cell phones, and handwriting in the classroom? Then you won’t want to miss this special year-end bonus episode based on one of our most popular feature articles of the year. 

In the latest episode of School of Practice, Edutopia’s research editor Youki Terada and editor-in-chief Stephen Merrill walk us through the latest research on the impact of cell phone bans on classroom learning, why more recess time is critical for learning, how adept problem solvers tackle thorny math word problems, and how microbreaks powerfully impact focus and attention. Plus, we’ll share practical tips for bringing these findings right into classrooms today. 

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When students take notes during a lesson, research shows they get just about 30 to 45 percent of the important information right on the first try. 

High school teacher Benjamin Barbour discovered this disturbing problem after taking a quick peek at his students’ notes midway through whole-group instruction. What he saw stopped him in his tracks. 

“While some students had terrific notes, others had a big list of facts from the lecture or from the book,” Barbour says. “There was no rhyme or reason. Maybe there was a date but no information attached. And I realized: My students can’t even use these notes.”

In this episode of School of Practice, we take a look at Barbour’s three-step process for teaching better note-taking and substantially improving study skills. Just a few minutes of practice each day, Barbour says, can yield big gains for student learning. Plus, he explains the brilliant strategy he uses to incentivize better note-taking and study habits in his classroom.

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“I’m done, what’s next?” In every classroom, a handful of students will finish the work at warp speed. While the rest of the class is still mid-task, teachers must quickly pivot to keep the fast finishers busy, without missing an instructional beat.

Former K-12 teacher Todd Finley argues this challenge presents a golden opportunity. “Instead of asking the question: ‘How do I keep fast finishers busy?’ the question should be: ‘Am I providing them with activities that are really meaningful?’” he says.

In this episode of School of Practice, Finley, a professor of English education at East Carolina University, shares flexible, low-prep strategies for keeping speed racers engaged in meaningful work that’s immersive and challenging. Plus: Logistical tips for busy classrooms, and pointers for aligning tasks to classroom objectives.

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The idea that you’re not a writer unless you stare down a blank page and produce text—that’s about to change, says high school teacher Jen Roberts.

In her classroom, AI is not the enemy. It’s a tool she uses to help students become better writers. And yes, she sets guardrails. “You can be a real writer who started with an AI-generated outline,” she says. “You can have an AI thought partner who helps you plot out your story.” Yet for this to work in classrooms, “we need to readjust our expectations about student writing—and what we’re going to allow them to do and not do.”

In this episode of School of Practice, we dive into this radical pedagogical shift with Roberts, and examine the strategies she’s developed to weave AI into the writing process to deliver thoughtful, authentic student writing.

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Did you know that drawing can be a learning superpower—even for students who claim they’re not good at it? 

When kids attentively sketch something they’re learning about, they tap into the visual, kinesthetic, and linguistic parts of the brain, research shows. This generates abundant connections across the brain’s neural network and encodes learning even more deeply than more passive learning tasks, like reading or listening to a lecture. 

In this episode of School of Practice, high school biology and chemistry teacher Selim Tlili delves into how drawing to learn works across grade levels and subjects, as well as how he sets up and grades the practice in his classroom. Plus, he’s got special tips for engaging even the most reluctant sketch artists.

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Humans are social creatures, hardwired to take cues from others. If students don’t see classmates asking for help, they assume they should avoid it too. But when help-seeking becomes visible in the classroom, it starts to feel natural.

In this episode of School of Practice, high school teacher Cathleen Beachboard explains how she rewrote the script with her students to make asking for help not just acceptable but expected. Bonus: Once this shift happens, students won’t just ask more questions, they’ll start answering them, too.

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After trying numerous seating arrangements—including rows, blocks, and U shapes—educator Jay Schauer stumbled on a desk layout that outperformed them all. Edutopia’s community took notice.

In this episode of School of Practice, Schauer walks listeners through the many benefits of arranging desks in L-shaped groups, including better communication, greater flexibility, and improved learning outcomes for students. Plus, we ask him how to adapt the setup for testing, tiny rooms, and a range of other real classroom challenges.

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