Doug Lemov's field notes

Reflections on teaching, literacy, coaching, and practice.

04.07.14 Readers: Please Help Me with Positive Framing!

I’m writing about Positive Framing … the final steps of TLAC 2.0 and I want to give some examples.  What I’ve come up with is OK but the insights I got when I asked for input from readers on Exit Tickets was so good that I thought I’d enlist your collective advice again. For this exercise, please…


04.02.14 A Tale of Two Affirmations

I just realized something small but possibly important about narrating positive behavior in the classroom. Let’s say I’m standing at the front of my classroom as students enter and i want to acknowledge a student, Afonte, who’s met my expectations: come in, got out his stuff, got to work right away on the Do Now–just right. …


05.02.13 Sultanna Noormuhammad and How to Build a Teaching Community

This blog post is about a powerful—and simple, and short—email a great leader sent to her staff and how she packed value into a few short sentences…. A few weeks ago I blogged about the challenges of doing TLaC “on an island”—what it was like to trying try to implement a TLaC-ish approach as a lone…


04.10.13 How Positive Framing and Precise Praise Fit Together

I’m writing from the C-terminal at O’Hare where I’m sitting out a 5-hour delay getting back home to Albany.  Ever get that feeling that for every hour that passes another hour is going to be added to your delay?   Anyway, I’m coming home from Colorado where I had the honor of leading a workshop for a…