Doug Lemov's field notes

Reflections on teaching, literacy, coaching, and practice.

01.04.24 Managing (Your Own) Working Memory: How Julia Uses Her “Monitoring Key”

  Yesterday I posted about the challenges of managing limits on Working Memory for teachers. We know we’ve got to design our teaching to respond to the challenges the classrooms presents for student’s Working Memory, but we’ve also got to be thinking about the under-acknowledge issue of our own working memory overloads. Walking around the classroom…


04.25.23 Show Call, Collectively Worked Examples and the Transient Information Effect

  Cognitive load theory describes the relationship between Working and Long-term Memory during learning. Understanding cognitive load theory and its implications for the classroom is one of the most important things teachers can do to improve their instruction.  Cognitive load theory focuses us on understanding and addressing the importance of building Long-term Memory. Kirschner, Sweller and…


04.04.17 How Julia Addeo Improves Student Thinking By Improving Student Vocabulary

A couple of weeks ago I shared a picture of Jo Facer at Michaela school. She’d used a list of sophisticated verbs that added depth and nuance to discussion about what a text “showed” to expand her students vocabulary and precision when discussing texts. The idea resonated with lots of folks so I am happy to…