learning & memory | Cult of Pedagogy

Mind’s Eye: A Pre-Reading Strategy

29May2014

by Jennifer Gonzalez

Some texts are just hard for students to get into. The Mind’s Eye strategy tackles that problem head on: It grabs students’ attention before they ever read a single word and creates a mystery that can only be solved by reading the text.

Why is my kid allowed to make spelling mistakes?

18Apr2014

by Jennifer Gonzalez

“Last week, my son brought home a stack of papers from his first-grade class. Some of them had obvious spelling errors, but no one had marked them wrong. What’s the deal? Why don’t teachers seem to care about spelling anymore?”

Know Your Terms: Nonlinguistic Representation

12Mar2014

by Jennifer Gonzalez

If you’ve ever heard a guy stop in the middle of an explanation and say, “Hold on, let me draw you a picture,” that dude is fixing to serve you a heaping plate of nonlinguistic representation.

The Trouble with “Amazing”: Giving Praise that Matters

25Jan2014

by Jennifer Gonzalez

If you’re trying to motivate someone—a student, an employee, your child—calling them amazing won’t pump them up the way you hope it will. Not in any lasting way. What’s worse, it could have the opposite effect.

What We Can All Learn from a Montessori Classroom

26Nov2013

by Jennifer Gonzalez

What I didn’t expect was the attitude of the students: They were focused. They were calm. They retrieved their lessons and worked at them seriously, while still maintaining a sense of humor. And their work was plenty rigorous.

Are You Broadcasting on Too Many Channels?

20Oct2013

by Jennifer Gonzalez

Asking students to read one thing and listen to another is asking the impossible.