I want to talk to you briefly about how to take the junk out of your teaching. I hate to break it to you, and I had to break it to myself too, but a lot of the stuff we teach just isn’t necessary for kids to get to the mastery point.
So let’s de-junkify our teaching! Ask yourself three questions:
- What skill am I teaching today? In other words, what do I want kids to be able to take to the next classroom and be able to do skill-wise?
- What is the least amount of information that I need to share with my students for them to master the skill? Get to the meat of the lesson quickly and effectively.
- What information would be nice to give my kids but is not necessary for mastery? What is exciting, what will hook them in, what is fun? How much time do I spend on these parts of the lesson? Stay focused on mastery even when offering this extra information!
Next lesson, try it! I promise it will make a huge difference, it did for me when I made this same change in my practice.
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