Professional Development
Videos designed for teachers rather than students.
Depth and Complexity – An Introduction for Teachers
Depth and Complexity is a powerful, but often misunderstood, framework for teaching students to think more like experts.
Writing Differentiated Lesson Objectives
My early lessons didn't even have objectives, let alone good objectives! Here's how to build four-part, differentiated lesson objectives.
Differentiate with Low Floors and High Ceilings
Start with high expectations and scaffold down.
Asking Questions That Make Students Think
How can we ask questions that make students think rather than just remember?
Difficult vs Complex Tasks
What separates difficulty from complexity? And why do complex tasks lead to much more natural differentiation?
Creating Sequences of Questions
Research has been surprisingly unclear about whether high-level questions are actually effective What? The key is that high-level questions on their own aren't enough. We need to build sequences!
Why I Don’t Use “Create”
Why I don't use the word "Create" when writing objectives.
Why “Challenging” May Not Be The Right Goal
So many of us say, "I want to challenge my students!" But, that's probably not the best place to start.
Improving Wait Time
How much time do students get to think? How much time do students need to think? How can we bring those into alignment?
Lesson Makeover Event – Keynote
After looking at dozens of lessons folks sent in, I came up with three big ideas to address.
New Uses for Everyday Things
Here's how Joelle Trayers gets even her youngest students ready to think in unexpected ways.
Universal Themes
Universal Themes are an easy way to connect lessons, units, and content areas, even going across grade levels, and into students' personal interests.
Inductively Analyze Website Reliability
Rather than giving students rules to apply to websites, let them analyze websites to create rules.
Climbing Blooms with Depth and Complexity
Combine higher levels of Bloom's Taxonomy with the prompts of Depth and Complexity!
An Inductive Exploration Of Geometry
With inductive thinking, students will work from parts to whole, discovering big ideas along the way!
Analyzing Conflict with the Content Imperatives
How to go deep into conflict using the Content Imperatives.
Multipotentiality: Excellent at Many Things
Why being good at many things can be a bit of a burden.
Teaching Criticism
Ask students to go beyond "I don't like it" and form critical opinions based on a set of criteria. Students can produce written arguments or turn their opinion into oral presentations.
Students and Personality Types
How can our students be so different? And how can we help them to understand themselves and each other better.
Building Creative Confidence with the Torrance Tests
Here are a bunch of ways to quickly practice creativity with your students for zero dollars.
Running A Group Investigation Lesson
Learn to lead a lesson that is built entirely on student curiosity.
Developing Questions that Prompt Thinking in Math
Math is a particularly tricky subject for asking higher-level questions. Here are a couple of techniques I've used to prompt students to think, not merely calculate.
Complex Task: Academic Tournaments
Who would win in the Tournament of Most Honorable Presidents or Least Useful Geometric Shapes or Bravest Shakespearean Characters? Create an academic tournament and watch your students' brains sweat!
The Curse of Knowledge and Checking for Understanding
How knowing your material well easily becomes a curse… and what to do about it!
Content Imperatives
Learn to use the Content Imperatives, a set of five additional tools that work with Depth and Complexity.
Who Asks The Questions? And Who Answers?
What would the pie chart look like for these three situations: the teacher asks the students, a student asks the teacher, or a student asks another student a question? I can tell you my pie chart would have been very lopsided.
Addressing Disorganization
Know any kids who, despite their brilliant minds, have a bit of a hard time keeping things in order, turning things in on time, or remembering to put their names on their papers?
Building “Not Like The Others” Tasks
A delightfully ambiguous framework that is quick to prepare, but can last forever!
Writing Concept Attainment Lessons
In a Concept Attainment lesson, we give students examples and non-examples of a concept -- without telling them what that concept is!
Explain Concepts with the Frayer Model
Giving a definition just doesn't cut it! Use the Frayer Model to explain (and assess!) vocabulary.
Complex Task: Subjective Graphs
What would it be like if students graphed characters from stories? Historic leaders? Elements from the period table? Objects in space?
Brain Needs or Heart Needs
We think of gifted kids as only having academic needs, but - in their own words - they also have many needs of the heart.
My Top 5 Depth and Complexity Mistakes
I spent about a decade making some pretty major mistakes in my use of depth and complexity.
Exposing Students to Classics
Some kids are exposed to a wide range of classic art, music, and films at home and others aren't. Let's even the playing field by quickly integrating classics into our lessons.
Introduction to Differentiation
When differentiating, most teachers simply start in the wrong place!
Meeting Gifted Students’ Social and Emotional Needs
How can you tell if your students' social-emotional needs are being met on your campus?
Running A “Notice, Wonder” Lesson
Use these puzzling images to build a classroom culture that is comfortable with curiosity, ambiguity, and taking intellectual risks.
Complex Task: What Would X Think of Y?
Here's a simple task that will add complexity to any content from any grade level!
Thinking Deeply About Famous Structures
Rather than just learning about one structure, let's climb Bloom's and think more deeply.
Introduction to Puzzlements
The thinking behind my weekly Puzzlements mailer.
Unexpected Intensities
Do you know a student who's a little bit… intense?
Updating Old Questions: Volcano from Two Perspectives
How I'd break down and rebuild a task about judging a volcano.
Asynchrony
In some areas, a student may be shockingly advanced, while in others… surprisingly average. This is asynchrony in action.
Think Like a Disciplinarian (or an Expert!)
Here's how I got better at using the Think Like An Expert technique.
Rethinking Extension Menus
Is creating nine, two-sentence tasks really an effective way to differentiate?
Updating Old Questions: Conflict and Character Change
I update an old question about conflict and character change in the story Hatchet.
Start High, Scaffold Down
A high level of thinking also requires the support of thoughtful scaffolding.
Updating Old Questions: Comparing Two Leaders
How I'd upgrade a dull "which one is better" question.
Moving Students from “On-Level” to “Advanced” in Writing
What separates our on-level writers from our advanced writers?
Updating Old Questions: Pay Raise
How I'd update a low-level, overly engaging math question.
Context Clues and Classics
How to use a classic to revamp a study of context clues.
Depth and Complexity and Graphic Organizers
Let's see a few examples of how Depth and Complexity slides nicely into any graphic organizer.
Comparing Fraction Strategies
Comparing fraction strategies? Let's take it even further!
Assessing Differentiation Strategies With Walkthroughs
How do you know, when you're walking through a class, whether the students are receiving appropriate work?
Updating Old Questions: Name That Genre
How I'd improve a low-level question about a story's genre.
Assessing Differentiation Strategies with Student Products
Student products give an instant glimpse into whether differentiation is happening on your campus.
Models of Instruction: Inquiry Training
Want your students to ask better questions? Why not train them to inquire!?
Creativity Beyond The Fluff
Just because a task is "creative" doesn't mean students are at the top of Bloom's Taxonomy.
From Summary to Synthesis
Here's how you can move from merely "summarizing a text" to a high-level task that culminates in synthesis.
Differentiation of the Environment
Lisa explains how Log Cabin Living changed her classroom environment. Sort of.
Improving Evaluative Questions
How to improve questions at the "evaluate" level of Bloom's Taxonomy.
Making Depth and Complexity Posters
Why buy premade posters when you can show off your students' thinking about Depth and Complexity?
All About Pre-Assessment
A collection of helpful tips about differentiating through pre-assessment.
Misconceptions About 🏛️ Big Idea
For too long, I let my students turn in blah Big Ideas. Here's how I fixed it.
Big Products, Little Thinking: Wax Museum
A big, impressive product doesn't mean that there was big, impressive thinking.
Engagement Isn’t The Goal
While "engagement" is fun, it shouldn't be our main goal.
Comparing Strengths and Weaknesses
Go beyond merely explaining strengths and weaknesses and get students thinking in interesting ways.
An Introduction to Models of Instruction
As a new teacher, I only knew one model of instruction: Direct Instruction. I was like a chef who only knew how to deep fry!
Planning and Reflecting with Four Lists
Rather than adding more to your plate, think about what you want to stop doing.
Depth and Complexity: Patterns and Quadrilaterals
Why just "identifying patterns" isn't deep enough.
Depth and Complexity Walkthroughs
You're implementing Depth and Complexity, but how do you know if you're doing it well? Five things to look for.
Help Students to Memorize Anything
How to memorize the countries in Africa, the Japanese writing system, or a deck of cards.
Graphic Organizers and Higher Order Thinking
A few quick tips on how to better use graphic organizers to support higher-order thinking.
Beyond Identifying a Story’s Problem and Solution
So your students can identify a story's problem and solution. Then what?