The Conversation We Should Be Having
Most parent-teacher interviews go like this: Where’s my child at? What grade did they get? Are they behaving? But here’s what we should be asking: How is your child engaging in the learning process? And…
RESOURCE – Learning Zone Posters
The Learning Zone: Learning to Embrace Challenge in Your Classroom Enter your details below to receive resources to use to help you lead your work with The Learning Zones in your school.
Stop Guessing—Teach Students to Tell You What They Need
You’ve been teaching paragraph structure and quote integration. Both are in your success criteria. You mark an essay focusing on paragraph structure—it needs work and you have expertise to share. But the student was fixated…
The Advice Revolution: What Students Actually Want From You
“Am I finished?” “Is this good enough?” “What else do I need to do?” These questions drive teachers crazy because they reveal a fundamental problem: students have been trained to have feedback done to them,…
The Contaminated Word: Why ‘Feedback’ Makes Stud…
You spend hours writing thoughtful feedback on student work. You know what effective feedback looks like—timely, specific, actionable. You’re good at this. Then Monday arrives. Students glance at your comments for 30 seconds before shoving…
Audio Book Samples
Listen to Free Chapters from Learnership What does it take to prepare students for a future where the only constant is change? In these free audio chapters from Learnership, I invite you to rethink education’s…
Habits of Mind Starter Kit
Along with Art Costa and Bena Kallick, as well as many passionate educators, James has worked to infuse the Habits of Mind into schools and systems, into classrooms and the wider community – with extraordinary…
Learnership in Action: An Australian School’s Story
Learnership in Action: An Australian School’s Story Growing Agile Learners: The Award-Winning Program Transforming How Students Engage with Challenge Picture walking into a school where students actively embrace challenges, where “I can’t do this” has…
Learner Agency is an outcome, not a pedagogy
There’s a lot of talk in education at the moment about Learner Agency (aka student agency). In the name of agency we are supposed to give students “voice and choice” in their learning. But there’s…
Learner Agency White Paper
Learner Agency is a term educators are hearing more and more about. It appears in educational policy documents around the world, and school leaders are being told the importance of creating environments that promote “Learner…
Learnership – Free introductory webinar
This free one hour webinar is a great introduction to Learnership. Many schools have found this video useful to watch in staff meeting or leadership meetings as a way of introducing the ideas to teachers.…
Why Praising Effort Often Backfires
We’ve spent years telling teachers to praise effort. And with good reason. It’s a move away from praising natural ability, and toward valuing process. It sends the message that hard work matters. But here’s the…