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What the Most Successful Teachers Do Differently

No two classrooms operate exactly the same way. Teachers choose different teaching strategies. They may choose different materials to support their instruction. They have students engaged in different learning activities. They may even have entirely different classroom management systems.

Yet, these are not the elements that usually separate the most successful teachers. In fact, it is not the programs and techniques they adopt. What sets them apart is much deeper. Their secrets of success lie in the ways they think about and approach their practice. Their success is shaped by hundreds of small decisions made every day. These decisions—and the habits associated with them—over time quietly compound and generate momentum for learning that can be profound.

Remarkably, the practices and habits in which highly successful teachers engage do not require special talent or unusual intellect. Their power is found in authenticity and consistency. Let’s examine seven of these habits and the power they possess to positively impact students and learning.

Habit #1: They prioritize relationships that support learning. Highly successful teachers understand that relationships are the grease that makes many important aspects of learning possible. Building trust, showing respect, and making connections leads students to feel valued and as though they belong. The presence of strong, positive relationships creates a foundation for high expectations, confidence in feedback, and commitment to persist and succeed. Of course, these relationships are not confined to students. They extend to families, colleagues, and others whose support is important in fostering learning.

Habit #2: They reflect regularly and improve deliberately. Highly successful teachers recognize that experience is not the same as expertise. Taking time to reflect on what worked, what did not work, what was anticipated, and what surprised are starting points for gaining insight and strengthening professional practice. Growth comes from examination, analysis, and adjustments, not repetition.

Habit #3: They remain fully present, despite distractions. Successful teaching requires constant awareness. Students signal their confusion, engagement, emotions, curiosity, and other learning-related information constantly. Being fully present makes it more likely that subtle cues are noticed so that adjustments can be made in real time.

Habit #4: They avoid unnecessary multitasking. Like being fully present, focusing attention on what is most important increases the impact and boosts the productivity of highly successful teachers. Obviously, teachers face multiple competing demands, but trying to do too many things at once diminishes effectiveness. Focusing on what matters most for learning also minimizes the energy lost to less important and impactful activities.

Habit #5: They treat mistakes as feedback, not failure. Highly successful teachers understand that mistakes are nothing more than data that provides clues about what to avoid, adjust, and improve. When errors are seen as evidence, experimentation is easier, risks are less scary, and refinement is more likely. Additionally, when teachers see and use mistakes as information for improvement, mistakes become less risky for students.

Habit #6: They constantly check for understanding. Highly successful teachers know that instruction is important, but learning is what counts. Regularly gathering evidence of learning during instruction ensures that students remain engaged, are in sync with teaching, and are processing the information shared with them. As a result, instruction can be adjusted before confusion and misconceptions become entrenched. Checking for understanding following instruction allows teachers to discern where students need reinforcement, clarification, and additional practice.

Habit #7: They prioritize impact over affirmation. Not all teaching-related decisions are popular with students and not all decisions that are popular result in learning. Learning can be challenging, and it is not always enjoyable. Prioritizing actions that produce important learning and lasting growth leads to the success students deserve, even when other options may generate short-term enthusiasm.

These habits make one thing clear: Teaching success is less about activities and techniques and more about the ways we think about and approach our work. When we consistently practice these and similar habits, we create conditions to support learning growth and position us to become more effective.

May 01, 2026

Finishing Strong: Making ESY Decisions That Actually Make Sense

It’s hard to believe that we are already approaching the end of the school year. With spring in full swing, school teams are balancing progress monitoring, end-of-year meetings, and planning for what comes next. For many educators, Extended School Year (ESY) decisions are either already underway or quickly rising to the top of the to-do list. The question is: Are our ESY decisions thoughtful, individualized, and truly aligned to student needs? Or are we rushing to check a box?

As educators and leaders, you know that ESY is not about simply offering more school. It is about ensuring continuity of critical skills for students with disabilities. Under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, ESY must be determined on an individual basis, grounded in data, and designed to support a student’s ability to make meaningful progress. When done well, ESY decisions protect hard-earned gains and set students up for a stronger start in the fall.

As you head into ESY planning, it’s important to consider a few key areas that can strengthen both your process and your outcomes:

Start with Clarity: What Does the Student Truly Need?

Strong ESY decisions begin with the right lens. Shifting the conversation from “Does this student qualify?” to “What does this student need to maintain or continue progress?” keeps the focus on the student, where it belongs.

Teams need to ground that conversation in data. Progress monitoring, service logs, and work samples can help identify patterns of regression, recoupment, or emerging skills that may be at risk. While professional judgment plays an important role, pairing it with clear data ensures decisions are both thoughtful and defensible.

Just as important is identifying the most critical skills; it’s important to recognize that ESY is not intended to replicate the full school year. Instead, teams should prioritize a small number of foundational skills—specifically, those skills that have the greatest impact on the student’s overall progress and independence.

Strengthen the Process: Thoughtful, Collaborative Decision-Making

ESY decisions are strongest when they are intentional and collaborative, not rushed or routine.

Avoid patterns where decisions are made based on special education programs, disability categories, or “what we’ve always done.” Each student’s needs should drive the recommendation. Taking time to individualize decisions not only ensures compliance but also builds trust across teams.

Preparation is a key component of the process. When teams come to IEP meetings with data reviewed, observations gathered, and a preliminary recommendation in mind, conversations are more productive and focused.

Equally important is ensuring that all voices are part of the discussion. General education teachers, special education providers, related service staff, and families each bring valuable insight. Creating space for those perspectives leads to stronger, more well-rounded decisions.

Plan for Follow-Through: From Recommendation to Reality

A well-written ESY decision is only effective if it can be implemented with fidelity!

Think ahead about logistics, including staffing needs, scheduling, service delivery models, locations, and materials. Aligning these details early helps to ensure that what is written in the IEP translates into a meaningful summer experience for students.

Clear communication with families also plays a critical role. ESY can sometimes be misunderstood, so taking time to explain how decisions were made, what data was considered, and what services will look like helps build clarity and trust.

Finally, don’t underestimate the importance of documentation. Capturing not just the decision, but also the reasoning behind it and the data used to support it, reinforces continuity and strengthens the team’s position if questions arise later.

As the school year winds down, ESY decisions are an opportunity to ensure that student data, critical skill priorities, and individualized needs are driving team decisions. This is the time to be intentional about how those decisions are made and documented. A little focus now can prevent skill loss, reduce frustration, and create a smoother transition into the next school year.

Finishing strong isn’t just about closing out the year. It’s about setting students up for continued success. The care and intention behind your ESY decisions is a powerful part of that work.

April 28, 2026

The Unusual Power of Low-Stakes Collaborative Assessments

We know that having students engage in low-stakes assessments can ultimately lift their learning and improve performance on subsequent high-stakes assessments. When students have more comfortable opportunities to test their knowledge, understand where they are confused, or identify gaps in what they know, we can support them by reteaching and coaching, helping them to grow what they know. As a result, they typically perform better on assessments with greater significance. In other words, low-stakes assessments are typically focused on sense-making and knowledge growth, while high-stakes assessments render judgments.

With this understanding, the obvious question is: What are the best knowledge-building low-stakes assessment practices? It so happens that many of the most effective forms of low-stakes assessment are conducted collaboratively. When students share, discuss, explore, and practice what they are learning in pairs or groups, learning grows—usually more quickly and significantly than when they study alone.

Nevertheless, tapping the benefits of collaborative low-stakes practices involves more than simply putting students together to study or work. The structures and tasks students engage in matter. Learning grows the most when students think together, not just work together. Students learn more when they are evaluators as well as performers, and understanding expands when students analyze errors as well as the correct answers. With these insights in mind, here are five collaborative, low-stakes assessments and learning activities to consider trying.

Collaborative Concept Mapping

Concept maps help learners to see relationships among factors and elements. The more complete the concept map, the clearer the concepts become. However, when students complete concept maps on their own, they only benefit from what they already know. When concept maps are developed collaboratively, students benefit from others' perspectives, have opportunities to discuss and clarify relationships, uncover gaps in their knowledge, and deepen their understanding. Of course, collaborative groups may need guidance and coaching to avoid a single student creating the concept map without discussion, debate, and input from other group members.

Reciprocal Teaching

The power of explaining what we are learning and teaching others what we understand is well-documented. Explaining and teaching forces the organization of information and consolidation of understanding to a level where it can be shared with and understood by others; this process deepens understanding and builds long-term memory. When students teach each other, both parties benefit. Attempting to explain a concept can uncover confusion and knowledge gaps, and questions and clarification can further broaden and deepen new learning. That said, we may need to monitor this activity to ensure that misconceptions are not being passed along and that accurate information is exchanged.

Collaboratively Constructed Success Criteria

When students participate in defining what quality looks like, they are more likely to focus on meeting the criteria they have created and understand. Yet students working individually can struggle to understand and articulate success criteria that reflect more than what they understand and can perform. On the other hand, group discussions can surface additional areas of understanding to capture in a list of criteria. We might provide groups with examples of varying quality for students to examine and then use to stimulate discussion and clarify which important concepts and elements to include. The outcome of the sample examination and the criteria clarification might be a rubric to guide the assessment of the work they will produce. Student-produced rubrics might be compared across groups and with a rubric we create to identify areas of consensus and further clarify what constitutes quality. In the end, students will have criteria that they own and understand, not just receive.

Team-Based Error Analysis

Errors can be excellent prompts for learning. Studying the nature and causes of errors can stimulate discussion and deepen understanding. Depending on students’ maturity and readiness, groups might analyze examples we provide or use the work of one or more group members. We might provide prompts to focus the group's attention or allow them to search out, analyze, and provide corrections they see as necessary, along with an explanation of why. The goal is to have students discuss and gain an understanding of what caused errors and how they might be corrected. However, in this context, some benefit can be gained even when a single student can identify errors, analyze their cause, and make corrections, if the student provides (teaches) this information to other members of the group.

Collaborative Self-Assessment

This low-stakes activity borrows from the practice of self-testing for students to analyze their work before submitting it. When students have developed drafts, models, or outlines in response to a task or challenge, they might share their work with other members of a student group for analysis, feedback, and suggestions for improvement. This practice gives students opportunities to share and explain their work as well as chances to gain access to other students' understanding and ideas. They also see the work and hear the perspectives of other students through the work products they share. Student groups might utilize self-created or teacher-developed rubrics to guide their discussion and feedback. Of course, we may need to reinforce positive group norms to ensure that feedback and suggestions are offered in a helpful and supportive manner.

The power of collaborative low-stakes assessments lies in the thinking and sharing it invites, not in the activity itself. When we position students as contributors, critics, and co-constructors of their learning, assessment shifts from exercises in judgment to opportunities for growth and sense-making. In truth, our goal is not just to prepare students for future assessments, but to prepare them to be capable, confident learners.

April 23, 2026

How to Help Students Recognize and Develop Their Talents

Our first responsibility as educators is to ensure that students develop the broad base of knowledge and the skillset necessary to prepare them for life after they leave formal education. While this challenge is, of course, worthy of our time and attention, there is also a second challenge to which educators need to attend: to scout, find, and develop students’ special interests, aptitudes, and talents.

Gaining skills and a broad understanding across the general curriculum provides students with important preparation for life. However, when we find and tap students’ special gifts and interests, we open the door for them to move beyond compliance with what is expected of them and to pursue a deeper learning experience featuring a sense of purpose, persistence, and commitment that drives their learning.

A first step in discovering a student’s special gifts and talents is to simply be aware of the student's potential and look for these gifts and talents. When we believe every student has talent—even though it may be hidden or undiscovered—our relationships with them shift. We pay attention to signs and signals in students’ words and behaviors that might be evidence of academic, artistic, physical, creative, or leadership talent. We see flashes of creativity, a facility for problem-solving, or a spirit of compassion and empathy as potential evidence of a latent talent to be developed.

While we want all students to grow and progress across a broad array of areas, talent cultivation focuses on an area or areas in which a student might continue to grow in depth and at a rate that exceeds what might be envisioned or expected in the general education context. Often, these specific areas of interest can lead to focused career exploration and help the student make decisions that chart a course for their future.

Of course, uncovering areas of potential interest and talent is only the first step. Our most impactful work lies in cultivating the potential students possess. We can begin by helping students to be aware of what excites them, comes easily for them, or attracts their energy. However, we need to be careful to nurture what the student finds interesting or is passionate about, not what we believe should drive them.

We also need to define talent broadly. Academic, artistic, physical, creative, and leadership talent are commonly noticed, but we might also include empathy, compassion, persistence, and problem-solving in our definition of talent. Many emerging careers and employment options depend on talents that have not traditionally been recognized and celebrated.

Further, we can think of talent development as a continuum. A student may not demonstrate a high level of accomplishment now, but their talent can grow and become increasingly apparent and valuable over time. Talent rarely comes fully developed. Time, practice, commitment, and support are crucial elements for moving toward full development.

We can match growth opportunities with practice and exploration. Students need opportunities to practice and develop new skills. Depending on their ages, we might identify and encourage students to engage in internships, apprenticeships, and other related experiences to grow their talent and skills.

We need to treat mistakes and setbacks as learning opportunities. Students can easily become discouraged when they attempt a difficult task or a challenge and are not immediately successful. We need to help them see less-than-successful attempts as important opportunities for learning rather than evidence of inadequacy or reasons to give up.

We can give students choices and space to develop. Students grow and develop at their own pace. They also need to feel ownership for the path they are pursuing. We may need to step back and give students opportunities to try and fail and make choices about the path that is best for them. In the end, students need to feel ownership and commitment on their own terms, not in response to our and others’ expectations.

Finally, we can allow students to see us stretch and grow. We can be useful models for students when we take risks and continue to grow our skills. When students see us stretching, making mistakes, and learning from our experiences, they can feel freer to try difficult tasks and take on significant challenges without expecting perfection.

Helping students build the knowledge and skills contained in the curriculum can often be a challenge. Students may struggle to see relevance and perceive learning as a compliance activity. When students find areas of special interest and uncover their unique talents, they’re more likely to persist in the face of challenges and commit to their learning path. Our job is to notice, nurture, and nudge.

Visit our Paraeducator Career and Technical Education Pathway page to see how this program for high school students aligns with your school’s Grow-Your-Own program!

April 09, 2026

Checking for Evidence of Understanding: 3 Levels to Examine

We typically think of checking for understanding as an activity that occurs in the context of instruction to ensure that students are following and understanding. Of course, this is an important component of learning. If students are confused or unable to grasp concepts and skills as they are presented, it is unlikely that much learning will occur.

Yet, checking for understanding encompasses much more than determining whether students are keeping up with instruction. While it is important for students to grasp what they are hearing, doing, and experiencing, learning requires students to do more than follow along. Learning happens when students reflect on what they are learning, connect new information to what they already know, apply what they are learning, and use it to create new insights and extend their understanding.

Checking for understanding that informs us of whether and how students are learning needs to encompass the rest of the learning process. We might think of checking for understanding as a multi-level process: The first level features common activities and signals that students are following along and keeping up. The second level occurs following instruction and focuses on elements such as whether students can explain, summarize, or demonstrate the target skill or concept. The third level goes even deeper to understand whether students can apply new learning in novel and authentic contexts.

Each level of evidence is important in evaluating learning progress and diagnosing areas of struggle, confusion, or disconnection. Equally important, each level builds on the one above it. Obviously, students will not be able to explain or summarize information about which they are confused, nor would they be able to apply and transfer learning they cannot summarize or demonstrate.

So, what might a layered process of checking for understanding look like, and what activities might fall into each level of evidence? Consider this example as a place to start and build on.

Level 1: Real-time Confirmation and Feedback. At this level, we are checking for confusion, misconceptions, and disengagement. We want to know that students are tracking our instruction so that we can adjust our instruction to clarify and correct anything that may be getting in the way of learning.

Potential activities:

Nonverbal signals such as “thumbs up/thumbs sideways/thumbs down”

Confidence ratings like the tried-and-true Fist to Five

Mini white board responses

Digital polls or a show of hands

Choral responses

Visual or graphic representations

Level 2: Post-Instruction Traction. Following instruction, our checking for understanding shifts to determining whether new learning has stabilized. We want to know whether new learning has reached the level where students can explain what they have learned, summarize their learning, and demonstrate the new skill or concept.

Potential activities:

Exit tickets

Turn-talk-share

60-second summaries

Teach a peer

Compare/contrast prompts

Retrieval practice

Level 3: Application, Transfer, and Extension. At this level, we are checking for evidence of understanding that reflects students’ movement beyond recognition and short-term recall. We want to confirm that students have gained the clarity and confidence to use what they have learned independently and apply it in unfamiliar contexts. We want to see whether students can use what they have learned to create new insights, discover new uses, and solve problems that extend beyond what they have been taught.

Potential activities:

Project-based learning

Simulations

Performance tasks

Socratic seminars

Design challenges

Case studies

We need to know what students are learning, and checking for understanding is a great strategy for collecting evidence. However, we should be careful to avoid confusing participation for understanding, surface engagement for learning, and memorization for insight. Only when we intentionally seek out evidence can we be confident that learning has the depth, strength, and sticking power necessary to serve our students’ needs.

April 02, 2026

Seven Strategies to Help Students Fight Test Anxiety

It’s here again, that time of the school year when we face those high-stakes cumulative assessments. We want our students to do their best, so we spend time helping them to review, refresh, and renew what they have learned. We might have students engage in self-assessments, review portfolios, make flashcards, create mind maps, or tap other strategies they find helpful. More formally, we can even share test-taking strategies and have students take practice tests.

Despite our instructional preparation, though, students’ mental and emotional states can have as much impact on their test performance as the academic knowledge and skills they possess. The truth is that when students feel anxious or overwhelmed with stress and as such are unable to focus, they may not perform at a level that reflects what they actually know and can do.

Fortunately, there are several tools we can share with students to help them monitor and control much of the stress and anxiety they may experience. Here are seven tried-and-true strategies students are likely to find helpful.

Alleviate anxiety. When anxiety grows, students can experience a fight-flight-freeze response. They may become so preoccupied that thinking becomes almost impossible. One of the simplest and most effective ways to counter anxiety is deep breathing. For example, we might coach students to inhale slowly for 4 seconds, exhale slowly for 6 seconds, and repeat for 30-60 seconds. As students slowly exhale, they are likely to find that their body and mind shift to a calmer state.

Reframe stress. Stress can have a positive or negative impact on performance. The impact of stress is heavily influenced by how it is viewed. Healthy levels of stress can sharpen focus, elevate awareness, and help memory retrieval. On the other hand, stress can lead to a freeze response in the brain, which makes it difficult or impossible for a person to think clearly and do the things they need to do. Yet, nervousness is just a signal that something important is about to happen. We can coach students to mentally reframe anxiety and stress as simple energy rather than risk or danger. They might think of stress as a signal that their mind and body are getting ready to perform.

Focus on controllables. We might remind students that despite not being able to predict or control the questions they will have to answer and tasks they will be expected to complete, there is much they can and do control: They control the effort they invest, the strategies they will rely on, and the areas on which to focus their attention as they prepare. While they may not know the outcome in advance, they can control the processes that will determine the outcome. Often, just gaining a sense of control is enough to instill confidence and reduce the stress of high-stakes testing.

Flush mistakes. Athletes are taught that when they make a mistake or something goes wrong, they need to immediately let go of what happened and focus on moving forward. Success is more likely to be determined by what students do following their mistakes than by the mistakes themselves. Everyone makes mistakes. The key is to recover quickly. We can coach students to accept what happened, refocus, and keep moving. The sooner students refocus, the better they will perform.

Challenge catastrophic thinking. High-stakes tests can trigger exaggerated fears, even among students who are likely to do well. They can worry that their life will be over if they do not do well, or that everyone else will do better and they will be embarrassed and look bad. Often, just having students consider the worst that can happen and what the most likely outcome is can help them be more realistic and regain perspective.

Practice visualization. Having students visualize the test and how they will engage can help them to rehearse success. Visualization can build confidence and push against anxiety. High-performing athletes and professionals regularly practice visualization to prepare for competition and manage stressful situations. As examples, we might have students visualize calmly opening the test, looking for questions to which they already know the answers, and working calmly and steadily through the test.

Create a plan. Having a plan for when students feel stuck can be a great way to help them avoid panicking and making the situation worse. For example, we might coach students to pause and take a breath, read the question again to see if any clues or ideas surface, mark the question so they can come back to it, and move on to the next question. Getting stuck may happen, but staying stuck is not inevitable.

Finally, we can assure students that no single test defines who they are or the potential they possess. A test may capture what students know about something on a particular day, but they are not determiners of the future. The future remains in the hands of students and what they choose to do with it.

March 27, 2026

Share Your Tips & Stories

Share your story and the tips you have for getting through this challenging time. It can remind a fellow school leader of something they forgot, or your example can make a difficult task much easier and allow them to get more done in less time. We may publish your comments.

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When Learning Stalls—Shift Your Teaching Stance

Most of us are familiar with the teaching stance popularly known as the warm demander, the educator who holds high expectations while communicating high levels of warmth and care. This approach is particularly effective because it helps students feel a sense of belonging while also holding them to high standards for success.

Yet, while the stance of a warm demander can yield positive learning results for many students in many circumstances, it is not a panacea. Some students may be less focused on supportive relationships, and others do not necessarily need high levels of accountability to be successful. There are times when students need to be challenged, coached, or stimulated to lift their levels of engagement and learning. Consequently, they may be more responsive to a different approach than the one employed by warm demanding.

Occasionally, we can also feel as though our teaching is stalling, our students are not responding, and we are struggling. We may be facing the need to change our teaching stance. When this happens, we need options. Let’s consider four additional teaching stances beyond “warm demander” from which we might choose and when they might be most effective:

Learning coach: This stance offers high support and high productivity. The focus is on the importance of practicing to develop skills, normalizing struggle, using feedback, and monitoring and marking progress. This approach works best when students need to believe success is possible and identify a path to reach it.

Academic organizer: This stance features high expectations accompanied by high levels of structure and consistency. The approach features predictability, clarity, and consistent routines, and it offers scaffolding, checkpoints, and gradual release of responsibility. It works best when students need organization and increased self-regulation, would benefit from structure, and need focus.

Credible consultant: This approach maintains high standards but also offers high confidence in students’ abilities to learn. This stance focuses on providing clarity, structure, and expertise. Students respond best to this approach when they are seeking clear guidance, content coherence, and depth of expertise to find success. Students want clear expectations, an absence of distractions, and confidence that their teacher possesses deep knowledge and wisdom.

Cognitive stimulator: This approach, like the others, features high expectations, but those expectations are accompanied by a high level of challenge. The focus is on finding and presenting intellectual and skill challenges that attract students’ interest, sense of possibility, and self-competition. This stance works best when students are working below potential, are energized by ideas, and seek intellectual respect.

Considerations for deciding which stance to take:

We may be more comfortable with some stances than others, but our students’ needs and interests should drive the stance we choose.
We can shift among teaching stances during lessons as conditions and student needs emerge and shift. They are meant to be circumstance-dependent!
We may choose one teaching stance with some students and a different one with others.
We may not be certain of the teaching stance to take. When that is the case, we can stop and ask ourselves what we are seeing and hearing—compliance, confusion, disengagement, avoidance, or something else. Once we understand the behavior, we can choose the best response.

What is most important is that we start with what students need and what will stimulate the learning behavior that is most likely to lead to success. The correct choice of teaching stance offers the best opportunity for teaching and learning success.

Of course, the list of teaching stances discussed here is not exhaustive. What other stances have you found to be useful? How do they contribute to developing effective learning habits and academic success?

March 27, 2026

How to Help Students Take the Risks Learning Demands

Have you sensed that young people today are less inclined to take risks than previous generations? It may be more than your imagination. According to a recent CDC Youth Risk Behavior Report, today’s adolescents less frequently choose to engage in risk-related behaviors such as drinking and sex, and for an increasing number of adolescents, even driving is seen as risky and frightening.

On the surface, this may seem like good news. Yet this shift in behavior also suggests some bad news. While we want young people to be safe, part of learning to be independent is gaining experience in trying new things and learning to take risks and understand consequences.

What is driving the changes in behavior is open to speculation. Some blame an uncertain world. Others point to overprotective parents. Still others speculate that today’s youth are just more afraid of making mistakes and facing failure than previous generations. Regardless of the cause, it is a concern to monitor and address where practical.

Of course, students’ reticence to take risks also finds its way into the classroom. Students can be reluctant to take on complex projects and persist when faced with difficult challenges. Yet we know that trying hard things and finding a path to success, despite uncertainty, are important learning experiences. These experiences also help students to build confidence in their abilities and skills.

While we might advise and encourage parents to allow their children to take responsible risks and confront occasional lack of success, we cannot control that part of students’ lives. Nevertheless, there are strategies we can employ in our classroom to encourage and support students to take learning-related risks. Here are seven actions to consider.

We can start by making learning-related risks safe. We can create and protect a psychologically safe environment where students are not subject to public shame and criticism for trying, even if they are not completely successful. Building a learning community where students feel they belong can also make taking risks feel safer.

We can treat mistakes and missteps as natural to learning paths. We might use phrases such as “not yet,” “draft thinking,” and “evidence of progress” to help students understand that learning that is challenging rarely means getting things right on the first attempt. When students offer answers that are less than correct or complete, we can recognize and reinforce elements and aspects of their response that reflect thought and effort while continuing to coach them toward full understanding and skill development.

We might focus our praise and feedback on productive effort and effective strategies. Learning what it takes to succeed can be more important in the long term than succeeding without significant effort.

We can create scaffolding to support early efforts. We might provide exemplars, frameworks, checklists, and other resources to give students confidence to take early steps. We can also break complex tasks into manageable parts to prevent students from feeling overwhelmed.

We might provide students with multiple opportunities to practice. Practicing in a low-stakes environment can build confidence and lower feelings of risk. When the time comes for formal assessment or public performance, students are more likely to see the experience as an extension of practice than a “high wire” act.

We can normalize risk-taking language. We might talk with students about the importance of productive struggle and moving beyond their comfort zone into their learning zone. We also can build in opportunities and expectations for revising early attempts, engaging in reflection, and using what is learned to retry.

We can resist stepping in too early to rescue or fix mistakes. We might ask questions rather than immediately provide answers and solutions. We can inquire about what students are seeing and thinking rather than starting with our interpretation. The key is to offer support without removing ownership or lowering the challenge.

Our goal is to help students see learning-related risk-taking as a natural part of learning. Taking risks offers opportunities to succeed with things that are hard. When risk-taking becomes normalized, students are more likely to see risks as expressions of confidence rather than tests of courage.

Citations:

Baron, J. (2026, January 26). Why today’s teens are taking fewer risks. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/parenting-teens-through-connection/202601/why-todays-teens-are-taking-fewer-risks

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2024). Youth risk behavior survey data summary & trends report: 2013–2023. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. https://www.cdc.gov/yrbs/dstr/index.html

March 13, 2026

Help Students Apply Out-of-School Learning in School

When we teach our students new skills, we want them to apply these skills beyond the specific assignment or context in which they initially learned them. We call this additional application of skills transfer. For example, when students learn a mathematical process, we want them to be able to use the skill to solve problems involving different values, to answer related questions from other subject areas, and to understand relationships; this is called near transfer. Taking this idea even further, we might claim complete success when students use the new skill to generate new insights beyond our instruction or to create new knowledge or a unique application; this is far transfer.

Students often think of learning in school as separate and that academic skills are disconnected from learning and knowledge elsewhere. This perceived separation can lead students to overlook opportunities to use what they learn in academic settings in their everyday lives, limiting their motivation and understanding. By helping students recognize how academic skills connect to real-world contexts—such as using math for budgeting or interpreting data—they can become more engaged and see greater relevance in their learning, ultimately enhancing both their confidence and success.

Equally important, transfer is not limited to students using what they learn in class or school in a different context or in other aspects of their lives. The truth is that students develop skills, strategies, and insights outside of school that can benefit their learning in school. However, too often they fail to realize that they can transfer and apply much of what they know and practice outside of school to improve their success in school. We might think of this process as “reverse transfer.”

Helping students to see how outside-of-school skills and strategies can be applied in school can be an exceptionally beneficial revelation and learning accelerator. Let’s explore some outside-of-school skills that students can tap and leverage to support their in-school learning:

Outside-of-school skill: Playing video games and competitive sports develops persistence, strategic thinking, learning from mistakes and unsuccessful attempts, and involves constant improvement.
- In-school learning: Sticking with difficult learning challenges, mining mistakes for learning, finding and using new strategies, and building on past learning to support new learning.
Outside-of-school skill: Learning from YouTube, social media, and peers without formal teaching and structured lessons.
- In-school learning: Using varied resources to supplement formal instruction, learning from peers, and searching for information and learning independently.
Outside-of-school skill: Pushing back on unfairness and injustice and advocating for increased personal independence.
- In-school learning: Writing arguments, participating in debate, engaging in inquiry, and applying a claim-evidence-reasoning framework.
Outside-of-school skill: Creating videos, writing memes, and composing music.
- In-school learning: Using voice and focusing on the audience when writing, storytelling, and developing arguments, and choosing the appropriate format and vehicle to communicate messages.
Outside-of-school skill: Persuading friends, organizing activities, and being aware of group dynamics.
- In-school learning: Seeking and assuming formal leadership roles, learning and applying formal leadership skills and strategies.
Outside-of-school skill: Engaging in hobbies, part-time jobs, and pursuing career interests.
- In-school learning: Leveraging experience and connecting interests to increase relevance of academic content and skills.

Without question, many skills and habits students develop outside of school can benefit their learning in school. However, too many students miss this connection and fail to take advantage of the full range of skills and capabilities they possess. We can help by pointing out potential connections and helping students to transfer—or reverse transfer—what they already know to enhance what we ask them to learn. What additional out-of-school skills and strategies might you add to this list?

March 11, 2026

Nine Cognitive Science Practices That Accelerate Learning

The term “cognitive science” isn’t new, but the research-based, experience-proven practices that make up the body of cognitive science are compelling. Yet, for many educators, the collective body of knowledge and practices that comprise cognitive science may be less than familiar.

Nevertheless, cognitive science is rapidly becoming one of the hallmarks of the education profession. It provides vocabulary to describe, a language to use, and a framework to discuss key elements of teaching and learning. Interestingly, cognitive science tends to be more widely known and practiced as a comprehensive approach in countries like the United Kingdom and Australia than in the United States. Meanwhile, most of the research supporting cognitive science has its origins in the United States.

At its core, cognitive science explains key aspects of how our brains process, think, and remember what we learn. Implementation of cognitive science principles and practices have been credited for steady academic progress among English students and a fifty-percent reduction in their reading gender gap. Other countries are taking notice and are applying cognitive science principles in their school and with their students.

So, what are the key elements of cognitive science? Here are nine of the most common and relied on principles and practices. (We have also provided links to other In Your Corner blogs that discuss many of these elements.)

Instructional strategies

Activating prior knowledge. Connecting what students are going to learn with what they already know is a great way to prepare students to grasp unfamiliar content and build new skills. We can engage students in discussions, conduct refresher lessons, ask linked questions, and other activities to connect with past learning, draw on prior knowledge, and relate to student life experiences. This also is a key time to be alert for misconceptions that may interfere with new learning.

Dual coding. This practice draws on two key learning modes: visual and auditory processing. The power of the approach is that the brain responds and retains more information when information or experiences feature multiple entry points. Combining explanations with graphic organizers, matching what students read with visual representations, and having students draw as they build understanding of a new concept are examples of dual coding. However, it is crucial that the visual and auditory input be aligned and focus on the same concept, content, or skill to avoid confusion and misconceptions.

Cognitive load. The entry point for new learning is working memory. This temporary holding place sorts and processes information for later storage and recall in long-term memory. Unfortunately, it has limited capacity to hold new information. It is easy to overload working memory, and it is susceptible to distractions. When we overload working memory, we risk students missing key information or not recalling it later. To maximize the functioning of working memory and avoid cognitive overload we can minimize distractions, break information into manageable parts, and provide timely breaks for the brain to process what is being learned.

Learning strategies

Metacognition. Metacognition describes the process of thinking about one’s thinking. As students develop this skill, they become increasingly aware of their thinking strategies and how to monitor and modify their thinking processes. Metacognition can be developed by teaching reflection practices, planning actions, and sharing monitoring and adjustment strategies.

Interleaving. Interleaving is a powerful study strategy that mixes topics and subjects intentionally to encourage the brain to process and connect information as students learn. For example, students might study English for twenty minutes, followed by a similar amount of time spent studying history. Students might focus on new information followed by a review of content they already know. Or they might engage with content out of chronological order. Interleaving keeps the brain alert and improves its ability to differentiate elements and aspects of the content students are learning.

Learning support

Motivation. We need to tap motivation that comes from within students whenever possible. Learning that features opportunities for autonomy, features a clear and compelling purpose, presents the potential for mastery, and allows students to practice self-determination is nearly impossible for students to resist. We can supplement these elements by varying learning formats and activities to gain and hold attention.

Feedback. Feedback can be a powerful support for learning. However, to make a difference it must be timely, specific, actionable, and purposeful. Students need to receive feedback as soon after a learning experience or action as soon as practical. Feedback needs to focus clearly on what the student has done. Effective feedback also includes the next step students can take to move their learning forward. Finally, feedback that has an impact needs to be connected to a worthy purpose, such as accomplishing a goal, mastering a concept, or making important progress.

Deepening learning and extending recall

Retrieval practice. Retrieval practice is a particularly effective way to help students refresh previously learned content and skills and extend their recall of past learning. Students might be asked to conduct a “brain dump” of everything they can recall about a previously learned concept or skill. They might be given low stakes quizzes that refresh past learning. Or students may be asked to retrieve past learning as warm up activities and/or to complete exit tickets.

Spaced practice. Intensive, compressed studying can offer short-term learning benefits. However, learning sticks better when practice is spread over time. Spaced practice also tends to deepen learning and extend recall. The brain reads repetition as important. For example, we might introduce new content or a skill and help students to build initial understanding or competence and then follow up in a few days with practice and extension of the new concept or additional elements of the new skill. This process might repeat in several days or a week and over an extended period. The cyclical nature of this approach continually strengthens learning and extends students’ ability to recall and apply it.

Cognitive science can provide excellent guidance and useful tools to help our students ramp up their learning and extend their recall far beyond what they typically experience without these practices. If cognitive science is part of your instruction and support repertoire, keep up the good work. If some of these approaches are unfamiliar, now is a great time to try them.

March 11, 2026

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Nine Cognitive Science Practices That Accelerate Learning

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