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I have taken many ideas from this site and implemented with tweaks into my own classroom.

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The following links are a snapshot of how Standards-Based Grading works in my classroom. Vision / Summary A Vision For Grading SBG Summary: A Year in Review Detailed Breakdowns Creating Concept Checklists Creating Quizzes Grading Quizzes What does it look like in the gradebook? Retake Policy Student Learning Folders Using Formative Assessment Unpacking Quizzes Growth...

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Desmos offers best-in-class calculators, digital math activities, and curriculum to help every student love math and love learning math.

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Would You Rather Math - ASKING STUDENTS TO CHOOSE A PATH AND JUSTIFY IT WITH MATH

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Teachers, sign up for my mini-workshop to learn about how to implement Would You Rather Math into your classroom routines. We will explore some sentence frames, what happens when things don't go as planned, how to use the prompts in a remote learning setting, and much more. See you there!

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The Mathematics Assessment Project is part of the Math Design Collaborative initiated by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The project set out to design and develop well-engineered tools for formative and summative assessment that expose students' mathematical knowledge and reasoning, helping teachers guide them towards improvement and monitor progress. The tools are relevant to any curriculum that seeks to deepen students' understanding of mathematical concepts and develop their ability to apply that knowledge to non-routine problems.

More about the Math Assessment Project

100 lessons for formative assessment, some focused on developing math concepts, others on solving non-routine problems. A Brief Guide for teachers and administrators (PDF) is recommended reading before using these lessons for the first time.

A set of 94 exemplar summative assessment tasks to illustrate the range of performance goals required by CCSSM. The tasks come with scoring rubrics and examples of scored student work.

Complete summative test forms and rubrics designed to help teachers and students monitor their progress using a range of task types similar to the 'Tasks' section.

5 Prototype modules that encourage groups of teachers to explore the practical and pedagogical concepts behind the materials, such as formative assessment, collaborative learning and the use of unstructured problems.

The Teaching for Robust Understanding of Mathematics (TRU Math) suite is a set of tools with applications in Professional Development and research based around a framework for characterizing powerful learning environments.

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The Mathematics Assessment Project is part of the Math Design Collaborative initiated by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The project set out to design and develop well-engineered tools for formative and summative assessment that expose students' mathematical knowledge and reasoning, helping teachers guide them towards improvement and monitor progress.

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One of the many questions that I received in my email this week came from a reader who wanted to know what some of my favorite resources for teaching math are. She added the stipulation that they needed to work on Chromebooks because her district just replaced old Windows computers in a lab with a Chromebook cart arrangement. Here are the suggestions that I shared.

Desmos is a free graphing calculator that you can use in your web browser on a Chromebook or any other computer using the Chrome browser. It is also available for mobile phones. Desmos has a robust website full of activities and lessons to use in your classroom.

Graph.tk is a free online graphing utility that allows you to plot multiple functions through its dynamically re-sizing grid. To graph an equation on Graph.tk just click the "+" symbol to enter a new equation. One thing that isn't clear the first time you use Graph.tk is that you need to delete the existing default equations before you start.

GeoGebra Classic is the browser-based version of the popular GeoGebra software. For more than ten years teachers have used GeoGebra to teach graphing functions, probability, data analysis, and much more.

Math Vocabulary Cards is a free Chrome app designed for elementary school students. The app offers exactly what its name implies, a series of flashcards of mathematics vocabulary terms. Each card contains a term, a diagram, and a definition. By default the term is hidden and students have to guess the term based on the definition and diagram. Students can also use the cards with the definitions hidden and the terms revealed.

Geoboard is a free app on which students stretch virtual rubber bands over pegboards to create lines and shapes to learn about perimeter, area, and angles. The app is available as a Chrome app. It can also be used directly in any modern web browser. The browser-based version can be found here.

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5 Free Resources for Math Teachers Using Chromebooks

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One of the many questions that I received in my email this week came from a reader who wanted to know what some of my favorite resources for teaching math are. She added the stipulation that they needed to work on Chromebooks because her district just replaced old Windows computers in a lab with a Chromebook cart arrangement.

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Illustrative Mathematics provides resources and support for giving their students an enduring understanding of mathematics.

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I use this for my daily planning, and most of my document creation.

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Google Slides - create and edit presentations online, for free.

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Create a new presentation and edit with others at the same time. Get stuff done with or without an internet connection. Use Slides to edit PowerPoint files. Free from Google.

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Meet Google Drive - One place for all your files

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Google Drive is a free way to keep your files backed up and easy to reach from any phone, tablet, or computer. Start with 15GB of Google storage - free.

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By converting our sims to HTML5, we make them seamlessly available across platforms and devices. Whether you have laptops, iPads, chromebooks, or BYOD, your favorite PhET sims are always right at your fingertips.Become part of our mission today, and transform the learning experiences of students eve…

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GeoGebra - the world's favorite, free math tools used by over 100 million students and teachers

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Free digital tools for class activities, graphing, geometry, collaborative whiteboard and more

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Animated global statistics that everyone can understand

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At youcubed, we inspire, educate and empower teachers of mathematics, transforming the latest research on mathematics learning into accessible and practical forms.

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Listen to my interview with Pooja Agarwal ( transcript):

Sponsored by Raymond Geddes and Kids Discover

We've talked about retrieval practice two other times on this site: First in 2015, when we read the book Make it Stick. Then in 2016, I interviewed cognitive psychologists Megan Smith and Yana Weinstein about the Six Powerful Learning Strategies You Must Share with Students.

In both cases, I noticed that although we were discussing collections of techniques, retrieval practice was at the core of both groups. Because it's such a powerful technique, I would think that by now it would have really taken off, that I'd hear teachers talking about it and see the term crop up in lots of education spaces, but I don't see that happening.

So I wanted to give it one more push by carving out a designated spot for it here. My goal is to help retrieval practice become a regular part of classroom practice and part of our common vocabulary as teachers. To help with this cause, I interviewed Pooja Agarwal, Ph.D., cognitive scientist and founder of RetrievalPractice.org.

What is Retrieval Practice?

Retrieval practice is the act of trying to recall information without having it in front of you. Suppose you're studying the systems of the human body-skeletal, muscular, circulatory, and so on. You could do retrieval practice by attempting to name those systems without looking at the list. Once you've listed all you can remember, you'd open up your book or notes and check to see if you got them right.

You might be thinking, This is nothing new. The whole concept of flashcards is built on retrieval practice, and flashcards have been around forever, right?

What's new is the research: In recent years, cognitive psychologists have been comparing retrieval practice with other methods of studying-strategies like review lectures, study guides, and re-reading texts. And what they're finding is that nothing cements long-term learning as powerfully as retrieval practice.

The Research

Agarwal and her colleagues studied the effects of retrieval practice with students in a middle school social studies course (McDaniel, Agarwal, Huelser, McDermott, & Roediger, 2011). Over the course of a year and a half, while the teacher continued teaching as normal, students were regularly quizzed on the material with no-stakes quizzes, meaning they wouldn't count against their grades. These quizzes only covered about one-third of what was being taught. The teacher left the room for every quiz, so she had no knowledge of what was included in the quizzes.

On end-of-unit exams, students scored a full grade level higher on the material from the quizzes than on any of the other material. The other concepts had been taught and reviewed by the teacher as they normally would; the only difference was that some things also appeared on the no-stakes quizzes, and those were the concepts students retained more fully when tested on the exam.

The very act of being quizzed actually helped students learn better.

Here's what this means for teachers: When we teach something once, then want to do something else to help students learn it better, instead of just reviewing the content, we're much better off giving something like a quiz instead. In other words, if we do more asking students to pull concepts out of their brains, rather than continually trying to put concepts in, students will actually learn those concepts better.

To read about other studies on retrieval practice, click here. For now, let's look at some ways you can incorporate retrieval practice into your instruction.

Ways to Use Retrieval Practice in the Classroom

Think-Pair-Share
This quick, low-maintenance strategy can be used at any time to have students recall information, then share it with a partner. You can use think-pair-shares with single-answer questions, or make them more open-ended, like "Think of one thing you learned yesterday about cells." Be sure to have students think on their own before turning to a partner. "It's important for students to retrieve individually as much as possible," Agarwal advises. "If you jump right into pairs, then we all know as educators that some students are retrieving and some may not be." One way to make sure all students retrieve is to have them jot responses down on paper before sharing them with a partner.

Low-Stakes Quizzes
These can be given on paper, in a Google Form, with an individual response system like clickers, Plickers, or Poll Everywhere; or by using a game like Kahoot or Quizziz. It's important to note that these quizzes are a learning strategy: Ideally, students wouldn't get scores on them at all, but if you must give some points, make them an almost negligible part of students' overall class grade.

Brain Dumps
Have students get out a sheet of paper and, within a certain length of time, write down everything they know about a topic of study. This can be done at the beginning of a unit (similar to how you'd use a K-W-L Chart), partway through as a way to reinforce learning, or near the end of a unit. Once students have completed theirs, they can exchange them in a think-pair-share or use them to compile a whole-class brain dump. Then they can return to their texts to see what they missed or what needs correction.

Flashcards
These can be a powerful retrieval tool in class or at home, but students need to be taught to use them correctly:

Once a card has been mastered, keep it in the deck a while.
Research has shown that students tend to "drop" cards out of their decks too soon after they have mastered them (Karpicke, 2009). Ideally, a fact should be successfully retrieved three times before a student moves on from it.

Actually retrieve.
Karpicke's research also found that when students see a familiar prompt on a flashcard, they have a tendency to tell themselves they know it, then flip it over to see the answer, rather than taking a few extra seconds to actually recall the answer-and ideally, say it out loud-before flipping the card over. The difference in timing is subtle, but important: Students will not get the same benefits from flashcards unless they actually retrieve the answer before seeing it.

Shuffle the deck.
Keeping the cards in the same order makes them predictable. Once a deck has been gone through a few times, it should be shuffled to make it more challenging.

For more tips, take a look at College Info Geek's excellent post on effectively using flashcards.

Tips and Cautions

Retrieval practice is not the same thing as assessment.
Although some retrieval activities might allow you to formatively assess student understanding, remember that retrieval practice is a learning activity. Again, if you must assign points for practices, make sure they will have a very low impact on student grades.

Space your practice.
Retrieval practice is even more effective if it's done in short bursts over time, rather than in a single long session. This spacing causes students to forget some of the material, and the struggle involved in trying to recall it strengthens their long-term learning.

Include feedback.
If students retrieve the wrong information, the practice won't be much good unless they find out the right information, so be sure to give them feedback as they go. This can be as simple as providing the correct answer or letting students check their texts after they have attempted to retrieve. "Part of that isn't just so students know if they got their answer correct or incorrect," Agarwal says, "but it adjusts students' metacognition," helping them get "better at estimating or judging what they know and what they don't know."

Match your practice to your assessment.
If your summative assessment for a chunk of content will be basic recall of facts, then the retrieval practice can be that simple. But it you're going to include some higher-order questions as well, then be sure to ask those same types of questions in retrieval practice.

Does it Fit with Inquiry Learning?

If your classroom is built around more hands-on, inquiry-driven approaches to learning that don't prioritize retaining specific content-structures like Genius Hour and project-based learning -you might wonder whether retrieval practice is relevant to your teaching.

Consider this: Within any of those frameworks, students still have to learn and retain discrete information. Take, for example, a student who has decided to learn Arabic as his focus for Genius Hour, or students who are studying soil pH as part of a gardening project. Both students will need to study and remember concrete information in order to make progress, so even if your instruction isn't set up in a traditional way, understanding how retrieval practice works can help you help your students learn better.

A Little Goes a Long Way

Agarwal's final piece of advice is to start small. "If a student just writes down two things or one thing they learned, and then you move on, that's okay," she says. "You'll still get benefits of retrieval without spending five minutes in a classroom discussion."

It can be a bell-ringer. An exit slip. A sponge activity. Something you do while students stand in line for lunch. Don't overthink it. Agarwal advises teachers to ask themselves this: "What is one way we can flip from reviewing information to students retrieving information? What can we do tomorrow?"

What will you do tomorrow? ♦

Learn More

Dr. Agarwal and her colleagues have put together this comprehensive guide to using retrieval practice. Visit RetrievalPractice.org/download to get a free copy for yourself.
References:
Karpicke, J. D. (2009). Metacognitive control and strategy selection: deciding to practice retrieval during learning. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 138(4), 469.

McDaniel, M. A., Agarwal, P. K., Huelser, B. J., McDermott, K. B., & Roediger III, H. L. (2011). Test-enhanced learning in a middle school science classroom: The effects of quiz frequency and placement. Journal of Educational Psychology, 103(2), 399.

There's a lot more where this came from.
Join my mailing list and get weekly tips, tools, and inspiration-in quick, bite-sized packages-all geared toward making your teaching more effective and fun. You'll get access to our members-only library of free downloads, including 20 Ways to Cut Your Grading Time in Half the e-booklet that has helped thousands of teachers save time on grading. Come on in!!

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Retrieval Practice: The Most Powerful Learning Strategy You're Not Using

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Listen to my interview with Pooja Agarwal ( transcript): Sponsored by Raymond Geddes and Kids Discover We've talked about retrieval practice two other times on this site: First in 2015, when we read the book Make it Stick. Then in 2016, I interviewed cognitive psychologists Megan Smith and Yana Weinstein about the Six Powerful Learning Strategies You Must Share with Students.

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December 2010/January 2011 | Volume 68 | Number 4
The Effective Educator Pages 46-50

Leila Christenbury

This article stems directly from my years of experience and reflection and from my stubborn and consistent aspiration to be a better teacher. I am not yet where I want to be, but as T. S. Eliot (1952) reminds us,

For us there is only the trying. The rest is not our business. (p. 128)

For those of us who are still trying to become the most effective teachers possible, it may be useful to consider a bit of history and a recent real-world example.

Scapegoats and Superstars

Although it might seem self-evident that effective teaching is at the heart of student learning, teaching has not always been a central part of the public discussion on education reform. Changing the patterns of school days and school years, establishing a common core curriculum, linking assessments to that curriculum, holding schools accountable for student test scores, altering administrators' preparation and responsibilities, incorporating new technologies into instruction, empowering community groups and school boards-these have all been and continue to be topics on the education reform discussion board. The teacher, an individual who is crucial to the success of any reform effort, has often been sidestepped, minimized, or even ignored.

Only recently has it occurred to a number of otherwise bright people that effective teaching is central to education success. Yet rather than being a wholly heartening development, as many of us initially hoped, this belated recognition of the importance of effective teachers has had unintended and even pernicious consequences. Both at the height of No Child Left Behind and in its current twilight era, the significance of the teacher's role has often been hijacked and distorted.

Some have claimed that because individual teachers are so important, they should be able to overcome any and all instructional, contextual, and societal issues and consistently raise student test scores every year. Some have argued that teachers are so vital that they must be strictly regulated; they must follow scripted curriculums and be tracked, rewarded, or punished for the performance of their students (again, as measured by test scores).

Further, because teachers are so central, some pundits and policymakers now propose that the best way to improve schools is to strip teachers of tenure and seniority protections so that newer and supposedly brighter and better teachers can quickly take the place of "underperforming" veterans. Certainly in the past year, the wholesale firing of an entire Rhode Island high school's teaching staff and the dismissal of hundreds of teachers from the District of Columbia schools were premised on the idea that teachers are all-important.

The public discussion no longer ignores teachers and their centrality; now it lays most of the onus of blame for student failure on the individual teacher. And it must be reiterated that in these days of high-stakes testing, student success is mostly determined by only one measure: test scores.

Can the individual teacher bear this responsibility alone? Carter (2009) critiques the image of the "teacher-as-saint" (p. 86). The public, he contends, expects teachers to work miracles and blames them when the miracles somehow do not materialize. In an online forum on teacher effectiveness, Kate Walsh (2010) points out that these "superstar" teachers are relatively rare. And although good teaching is integral to student success, it cannot by itself supersede the many other factors that contribute to educational success or failure.

What Is Effective Teaching?

I teach preservice teachers at the university level, and one of the hardest messages I try to impart to them is that there is no definitive recipe, no immutable formula, no simple list of do's and don'ts to ensure effective teaching. As they stand on the brink of entering their own classrooms, many of my students find this news frustrating. Some would prefer the deceptive comfort of Chester E. Finn Jr.'s (2010) reductionist definition, "An effective teacher is one whose pupils learn what they should while under his/her tutelage."

Only when preservice teachers have gained some experience with a range of students and some sense of themselves as teachers do they understand that the individual, idiosyncratic, and contextual aspects of effective teaching are what make it both enormously rewarding and enormously challenging. Students will always learn more, less, or differently than "what they should." Good teachers understand this. Most people outside the classroom, especially those who want to regularize and routinize teaching and learning, do not.

But although there is no precise recipe, we can recognize effective teaching by a number of characteristics.

Effective teaching is variable. Effective teachers use a variety of strategies and a range of methods, and they change and refine these over time. They do not teach the same way and use the same instructional repertoire year after year. Effective teachers also differ from one another; both teachers who use traditional methods and those who employ the most up-to-date pedagogy can be successful.

Effective teaching is contextual. It responds to individual students, school and classroom communities, and societal needs. Effective teachers alter, adjust, and change their instruction depending on who is in the classroom and the extent to which those students are achieving. Effective teachers are not so devoted to their practice that they ignore the students in front of them.

Effective teaching is premised on students' intellectual curiosity. Effective teachers begin with the belief that students are smart and can be enticed to learn. Despite their own skill, knowledge, and experience, effective teachers neither patronize nor condescend to students of any age.

Effective teaching must be somewhat autonomous. Reflective and accomplished teachers do not need to be controlled, managed, or strictly monitored. Such teachers are close to their students in intellectual as well as psychological ways, and they must be empowered to use their judgment to make classroom decisions.

Ultimately, effective teaching is fearless. Because the goal is learning, effective teachers must adjust curriculum, methods, and pacing to meet the needs of the students. Effective teachers put a priority on student needs rather than on the strictly interpreted demands of the school district curriculum guide or the year-end test. Again, to do this, teachers must have a great deal of independence.

Walking the Walk

In spring 2010, I had a teaching experience that illustrates some of the decisions and issues that confront all teachers in all classrooms as we strive for effective teaching.

Because of a scenario that has become common during these recession-plagued days, my university instituted a new round of budget cuts, and I found myself unexpectedly teaching an undergraduate writing course that is cross-listed in English and in education. I had created the course, Teaching Writing Skills, 20 years ago. But my responsibilities had evolved and I had not taught it for a while; it had recently been handled by experienced and talented adjuncts. Now it was mine to teach again.

At first, I welcomed this last-minute change in my schedule, confident that I was in touch with the course focus and the kinds of students who traditionally elected to enroll. In recent years, I had taught almost exclusively graduate students, and returning to teach this favorite undergraduate course would, I thought, be interesting.

New Challenges in an Old Course

Interesting it was indeed. Frankly, a number of issues caught me by surprise. Many of the issues were familiar to me from high school teaching, but I did not expect to find them at my university.

First, it quickly became clear that my 18 students were not prepared for the requirements of the course as I had designed it. On a purely academic level, many students struggled from the outset with the readings, the length and topics of journal assignments, the etiquette of large-group discussions, and the pacing and workload of the course itself. After some awkward class sessions during the first weeks of the semester, I checked student records and discovered that a number of those enrolled in this 300-level course had current grade point averages of 2.5 or lower.

Second, although this course was geared to the teaching of writing in secondary school, few of the course participants planned to go into teaching. (From my experience, this was not the usual course audience, and I wondered whether recent enrollment pressures in the English department had made this course attractive to English majors who needed the upper-level credits.) Not surprisingly, then, early discussions and assignments that addressed teaching scenarios were not successful. When I previously taught the course, the students were relatively able academically and most of them were taking the course as part of their preparation to teach.

As a third issue, some students appeared unaccustomed to norms of academic conduct, a problem I had rarely encountered at my university or even when teaching at the high school level. About half a dozen students had real difficulty with basic expectations: They did not come to class on time; return promptly from the break; or bring the necessary materials, books, and writing journals. When I gave them directions or asked them a question in discussions, some students routinely needed the question repeated; their minds were clearly wandering.

One student was obviously frustrated with the class and dealt with the situation by repeatedly coughing so loudly and persistently in a number of class meetings that class conversations and work had to stop. A least three students, early in the semester, routinely missed assignment deadlines despite an explicit syllabus and reminders.

In short, these students were not an optimal group. The 2010 Teaching Writing Skills course promised to be one hot mess.

Effective Teaching in a New Context

In this context, what did effective teaching look like?

First, it was variable. I ramped up the classroom intensity to the level I usually reserve for one- or two-day inservice workshops in which I need to instruct-and motivate-busy and often tired practicing teachers. As in those contexts, I worked hard with these Teaching Writing Skills students, being more personable and direct than I had been in any classroom in years to keep them awake, aware, and engaged. I used humor with the cougher and with those who needed repeated questioning. I also moved to more direct instruction, which I rarely used in my graduate-level courses.

My teaching in this course was also contextual. Clearly, what I had done before in this course was not going to work with these students. One strategy was to address the elephant in the room; I talked to the students explicitly about what I perceived was going on in the class, and I proposed solutions. I asked for their advice and feedback and gave them time to deliver it both face-to-face and anonymously. Students told me that they wanted more time with assignments, more direction regarding the content of journal entries, and more feedback from me on drafts. All of this I provided. To make the course more appropriate for the students, I broadened the content of discussions and assignments so that the focus was not just on teaching writing but on issues in the students' own writing.

And I found that the students were smart-perhaps not smart in the way I had assumed they would be, but in terms of their own interests. As I made writing assignments more relevant to those interests, students often revealed the kind of intellectual curiosity that I knew was there. One student's traditional argument paper defended the originality of Lady Gaga; another student, in the course of a paper focused on the day he was born, did an extensive-and sophisticated-analysis of affordable Brooklyn apartments that had been available to his young, immigrant parents.

I became more interventionist than I can ever recall in a college setting-or even during my time teaching high school. Specifically, I insisted that students who were struggling meet with me outside of class. I initiated one-on-one conferences, and during the class break I praised students for making progress with behavior and attention. I individually tutored two students whose literacy skills were below par. I used multiple e-mail messages to remind students about deadlines. At students' request, I expanded class time for discussions that were of greatest interest to the students. I also limited large-group discussions-which often veered out of control when students were not able to present comments or ideas civilly-and substituted small groups or pairs.

Most substantially, I concluded that few of these students would pass the course as currently constructed. Therefore I jettisoned some long-standing components of the course-in particular, the culminating assignment, which was a favorite of mine. This assignment had given each student the opportunity to assume the roles of both writing teacher and writing student. Students designed original writing tasks, exchanged and completed them, and then evaluated the final products. However successful this assignment had been in the past, I knew that it would most likely be a failure with these students because their interest in the teaching of writing was not central, and the detailed nature of the work relied heavily on a pedagogical focus.

I also deleted a quarter of the journal entry assignments, doubled the time allotted to writing-group revision, and initiated rewards for completion of minor assignments. I truncated some readings from the two textbooks and skipped other parts of the books entirely. At the end of the course, for the first time in my university teaching career (although I did this regularly as a high school teacher), I provided a two-page, detailed study guide for the exam.

Some of these changes may appear to have weakened the rigor of the original course; from my perspective, however, not making these changes ensured that most students who had signed up for Teaching Writing Skills would falter in the assignments if not fail the course itself. Compromise seemed the better path and gave students a chance to succeed.

How did students react, and how well did they do in Teaching Writing Skills? Over the course of the semester, nine final draft papers were unacceptable; these students were given an R grade (revise) and the opportunity to rewrite and resubmit without penalty, and every student took advantage of that opportunity. For the final exam, the study guide must have been helpful: 14 of the 18 students received As or Bs; there were only one C, one D, and two Fs. End-of-class anonymous student comments were generally positive ("encourages passionate discussions," "willing to help anyone who needed it," "establishes great working environment among all her students") as were instructor and course rankings (on a scale of 1 to 5, high 4s in almost every category). Regarding final course grades, of the 18 students, 12 earned either an A or a B; 4 received a C; and 2 students-who, despite all my efforts, continued to experience difficulties with attendance and deadlines-received D s.

Giving Teachers the Freedom to Put Students First

All of the adjustments I made in response to the context and the needs of students in this course depended on the autonomy I enjoyed in my university teaching position (a level of autonomy that current reform efforts are unfortunately making less, not more, common among elementary and secondary teachers). I think it would be overstating the case to call these adjustments fearless. But I was pleased that by focusing on effective teaching, I could recognize the need for change, respond to the challenges, and make significant pedagogical and content changes to meet student needs.

The spring 2010 Teaching Writing Skills course looked very different from the course I had taught years before. But the point was not to adhere to some preconceived, ideal course that was no longer appropriate for these students; the point was that effective teaching must be in service of student learning. Once we more fully integrate our efforts to improve teaching with school context and student need, we can look more confidently to a future in which all students experience success.

References

Carter, C. (2009, October). Priest, prostitute, plumber? The construction of teachers as saints. English Education, 42(1), 61-90.

Christenbury, L. (1996). Race differences: A white teacher and a native son. In B. M. Power and R. S. Hubbard (Eds.), Oops: What we learn when our teaching fails (pp. 77-81). York, ME: Stenhouse.

Christenbury, L. (2005). Making the journey: Being and becoming a teacher of English language arts (3rd ed.). Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Christenbury, L. (2007). Retracing the journey: Teaching and learning in an American high school. New York: Teachers College Press.

Eliot, T. S. (1952). East Coker (No. 2 of "Four Quartets"). In The complete poems and plays 1909-1950. New York: Harcourt Brace and World. (Original work published 1943)

Finn, C. E., Jr. (2010, July 12). Half brainer [blog comment]. Retrieved from National Journal Expert Blogs: Education at http://education.nationaljournal.com/2010/07/defining-effective-teachers.php#1603144

Walsh, K. (2010, July 12). Kate Walsh responds: The bottom line [blog comment]. Retrieved from National Journal Expert Blogs: Education at http://education.nationaljournal.com/2010/07/defining-effective-teachers.php#1604499

Leila Christenbury is Commonwealth Professor of English Education at Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia; a former high school English teacher; and past president of the National Council of Teachers of English; 804-828-1306; lchriste@vcu.edu.

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December 2010/January 2011 | Volume 68 | Number 4 The Effective Educator Pages 46-50 Leila Christenbury This article stems directly from my years of experience and reflection and from my stubborn and consistent aspiration to be a better teacher. I am not yet where I want to be, but as T.

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H5P content is responsive and mobile friendly, which means that users will experience the same rich, interactive content on computers, smartphones and tablets alike.

Share rich content

H5P enables existing CMSs and LMSs to create richer content. With H5P, authors may create and edit interactive videos, presentations, games, advertisements and more. Content may be imported and exported. All that is needed to view or edit H5P content is a web browser. H5P content types and applications are shared here on H5P.org. H5P content may be created on any H5P enabled web site like H5P.com or your own Drupal or WordPress site with the H5P plugin installed.

Free to use

H5P is a completely free and open technology, licensed with the MIT license. Demos/downloads, tutorials and documentation are all available for users who want to join the community.

Check out the content types

There are several H5P content types and applications to suit various needs.

Need help with H5P?

Take a look at the Documentation pages. If you can't find an answer there, you can post a question to the H5P community in the Forum. Selected companies also provide H5P related services.

Wed, 10/25/2023 - 10:18

Learn how to use Chat GPT to create H5P content.

Thu, 06/29/2023 - 14:39

Teachers, instructional designers and other authors may now build content more than three times faster with the help of AI and the new tool, Smart Import. We have also launched a new version of the Moodle plugin for H5P.

Thu, 06/29/2023 - 14:40

Falcon on the future of AI and H5P, and the results from last month's survey.

Want to help us spread the word?

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H5P empowers everyone to create, share and reuse interactive content - all you need is a web browser and a web site that supports H5P.

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Over the last 25 years, cognitive load theory has become one of the world's leading theories of instructional design. It is heavily researched by many educational and psychological researchers and is familiar to most practicing instructional designers, especially designers using computer and related technologies.

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I shared a pedagogy vs content knowledge question last week that made me realize a couple of things.

1. I learn quite a lot from wrestling my own thoughts on a topic into blog post form. I learn even more when I pose a question and have the privilege of reading others' thoughtful responses.

2. I miss #slowmathchat.

And so, a tiny resolution: To post more questions on my blog. Stay tuned. I hope you'll join in the fun.

P.S. I have a few questions of my own queued up, but I'd love to know what questions you'd love to see in the mix. Drop me a line (mjfenton at gmail dot com) with your contributions. Thanks in advance!

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I shared a pedagogy vs content knowledge question last week that made me realize a couple of things. I learn quite a lot from wrestling my own thoughts on a topic into blog post form. I learn even more when I pose a question and have the privilege of reading others' thoughtful responses.