Doug Lemov's field notes

Reflections on teaching, literacy, coaching, and practice.

06.12.15 Portrait of a Teacher (Beth Brannon) in 8 Scenes (Video)

Here’s a rundown of that video of Amarillo Texas Caprock High’s Beth Brannon that I promised in my recent post about unexpectedness. Beth uses, by my count, 11 techniques from Teach Like a Champion 2.0 in the clip (!), though you might never know it unless you watched carefully.  Her productive class seems like a happy…


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…


04.04.14 Systems and Routines is an Academic Tool, Too

Some of the most popular sections in Teach Like a Champion are the parts of the book about establishing systems and routines to make the classroom more efficient and maximize instructional time.  This section will get a revision in TLAC 2.0 with lots of updates and improvements.  One small but useful addition is this short sidebar…


04.01.14 Share Your Insights: Exit Tickets

Revising the Exit Tickets section from 2.0 before i put the Lesson Structure chapter to bed.  If you use Exit Tickets and could share one “best practice” and/or one “lesson learned” what would they be?  Look forward to your comments!


03.22.14 2.0 Excerpt: Maximizing Turn and Talks via the’In-Cue’

One of the sections that some readers might find especially “new” in the 2.0 version of TLaC is the chapter on building Ratio through discussion. (Aside: there are three chapters on Ratio in the new book: one on questioning, one on writing and one on discussion… not bad for a concept that was merely one technique…