Building a Better Teacher

There was a fascinating article in The New York Times Magazine section this weekend called "Building a Better Teacher" by Elizabeth Green. The article discussed training teachers in the techniques developed by successful teachers and developing teachers’ knowledge of how students may misunderstand new ideas. Doug Lemov, a one-time principal and now education consultant with Uncommon Schools, believes that getting students to pay attention is not only crucial but also a skill as specialized, intricate and learnable as playing guitar. Lemov has a new book coming out called "Teach Like a Champion: 49 Techniques that Put Students on the Path to College". In it, he discusses the many techniques that he found successful with teachers such as the "Strong Voice" technique devised to make sure students remain attentive or the "Cold Call' technique which holds students accountable for listening. I found the entire article so interesting and have already pre-ordered a copy of his book on Amazon. Here is a link to the article which also provides many more interesting links to videos of the techniques in action...www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/magazine/07Teachers-t.html .