Terry Heick

The Big Problem With Teaching by Terry Heick The typical approach to modern, K-12 pedagogy is to clarify a learning target, plan a learning experience that seems well-suited to ‘cause’ understanding of that target, and then assess…

Wendell Berry And ‘The Loss Of The University’ by Terry Heick There are a variety of questions that guide my work at TeachThought, each with their own available inferences and underlying assumptions, among them: What should a…

25 Of The Most Misunderstood Ideas In Education by Terry Heick There's a lot of misunderstanding in education, and that makes sense because it's an 'industry' with tremendous external pressure to change but an extraordinary kind…

Is Focusing On Student 'Improvement' The Wrong Approach? by Terry Heick One of the central criticisms of public education should ideally be the effect of public education. Somehow, most discussions around ed reform revolve…

15 Interesting Ways To Start Class Tomorrow by Terry Heick How should you start class tomorrow? You love teaching, your love your classroom, you love your students (most of them), but you’re tired. This doesn’t mean you’re not…

Why Being Wrong Is Actually A Good Thing by Terry Heick Being wrong is only ‘bad’ if the consequences of that ‘wrong’ outweigh the benefits (and potential future benefits) of becoming right. David Deutsch wrote about this idea…

12 Myths About Project-Based Learning by Terry Heick Simple premise: What are the most common myths about project-based learning? Put another way, what do we misunderstand about PBL that keeps it from realizing its full potential?…

10 Ways Data Can Sabotage Your Teaching by Terry Heick For professional development around developing data and assessment, contact us today. How do you use data in your teaching? Or assessment? Functionally, the purpose of…

A Letter Grade Isn’t A Letter Grade: Why We Should Stop Averaging Scores by Terry Heick Quick preface: Any argument rests on premises and terms, and so clarifying those premises and terms and related underlying assumptions is necessary…

50 Ways To Use Bloom's Taxonomy In The Classroom by Terry Heick Bloom's Taxonomy is a powerful teaching and learning tool that can help you shape nearly everything that happens in your classroom. Why you would want to do this is…

How Do You Improve As A Teacher? A Little Bit Every Day by Terry Heick Your work as a teacher is a journey. And it is very much still work, but the metaphor of a journey may be a more accurate representation of its character…

30 Questions Teachers Could Ask At Their Next Job Interview by Terry Heick So you're considering taking a teaching job? Or at least interviewing? What should you be asking to make sure it's a good fit for both you and the…

10 Strategies To Make Learning Feel More Like A Game by TeachThought Staff We've talked about gamification quite a bit, which is different than game-based learning, if you'll recall. (The definition of gamification is the…

What Is Bloom's Taxonomy? A Definition For Teachers by TeachThought Staff In one sentence, Bloom's Taxonomy is a hierarchical ordering of cognitive skills that can, among countless other uses, help teachers teach and students…

How To Never Run Out Of New Ideas As A Teacher by Terry Heick As an educator, ideas are everything. If educating, as a verb, was merely a matter of execution, ideas would be less important. In a standardized circumstance for…

16 Things I Want To Hear My Students Say by Terry Heick "Ohhh, now I get it." The iconic phrase that teachers value hearing. A sign that you've moved a student from not understanding to understanding. Into the light. A lot…

20 Questions To Clarify Your Teaching In 2019 by Terry Heick Who knows where education is going, but it's not impossible to come up with some questions that might guide that evolution. The following, then, are a collection of…

Why Parents Don't Understand How To Help by Terry Heick Jargon is a necessary evil. Simply put, jargon helps us be more specific. Pilots in planes don’t 'go up,' they 'gain altitude.' Forwards in basketball don’t simply…

 This Is One Of The Best Games To Teach Social Studies by Terry Heick Title: Civilization VI Platforms iPad Microsoft Windows Steam (The Windows version/Amazon link is an affiliate link--read more here, but the…

Revisiting 25 Predictions I Made About The Future Of Education by Terry Heick Originally published Dec 22, 2012  Preface: I talk a lot about the future of learning, and sometimes it's fun to go back and look to see how off I…

What Does 'Critical Thinking' Mean? by Terry Heick This post has been updated from a 2014 post What does 'critical thinking' mean? Well, that depends on who you ask. For educators, as a term critical thinking is similar to…

30 Universal Strategies For Learning by Terry Heick As teachers, we're all trying to better understand how people learn--not now they're taught in terms of teaching strategies, but more so learning strategies--only not really…

The Perfect Test: 32 Characteristics Of Quality Assessment by Terry Heick Nothing is perfect, but we can dream. So let's dream about assessment. What Is An Assessment? First, what is an assessment? A measurement? A…

John Dewey: 'We must prepare our students...for their world.' by Terry Heick "The world is moving at a tremendous rate. No one knows where. We must prepare our children not for the world of the past, not for our world, but for their…