Doug Lemov's field notes

Reflections on teaching, literacy, coaching, and practice.

01.10.19 Ms. Pacheco’s Kindergarten and the Importance of “Tracking, Not Watching”

      Wanted to take a moment to share a really lovely and elegant video from Narlene Pacheco’s kindergarten classroom at Partnership NYC’s Immaculate Conception School in the Bronx. Narlene’s teaching demonstrates a lot of elements of the Check for Understanding (CFU) technique, most of all Tracking Not Watching– the idea that careful observation for…


05.25.16 How to Break It Down: A Bit of Sage Advice from Juliana Worrell

Break It Down (Technique #35) is a  valuable and important teacher move, but it’s also without a doubt one of the hardest techniques in Teach Like a Champion to execute.  The idea is that when a student gives an incomplete or wrong answer, the teacher replies with a question that provides just enough hint, reminder, or…


09.04.13 Hyperboloid? Hyperboloid!

Heather Kirkpatrick is the Chief People Officer at Aspire Public Schools.  She’s one of the most insightful people I know and combines her insight with a ton of decency, humanity and humility.  So you pretty much want to take her advice when you get it.  Anyway, she read my recent post on “Rigor Collapse” and emailed this in…