My classroom practice is simple by design, and part of that simplicity is because of the few but important things I keep track of. In my career, I've noticed two unhelpful tendencies in the realm of tracking:

1. I track too many things, and as a result, I can't maintain the tracking system as the year progresses and the data piles up.
2. I track too few things, and as a result, I place too much burden on my mind to remember stuff that could be better remembered through externalizing my memory onto a tracking device.

Here are the things I keep track of; all of them are analog, as is my preference.

• Mini-sermon attempts: The thing with mini-sermons is that we all give them — every teacher in the world. We all have those moments where we're “feeling it” and we wax poetic on the beauty or wonder or grandeur of what we teach. The trouble is not that we never do these; it's that we don't do them nearly enough. Mini-sermons — especially when given by Credible teachers — are, therefore, a largely disused lever for improving the Value belief in our schools. This simple little tracker helps me ensure I'm attempting at least 100 mini-sermons per school year, which I believe places me in the top 1% of teachers in the world in terms of quantity of attempted mini-sermons. Additionally, the more mini-sermons I give, the better I get at their effective delivery. And, oh yeah — the better I tend to feel, too, as the mini-sermons have their most reliable impact on the inner world of the sermonizer.
• Classroom management (CM) builds: When I notice something isn't working right in my classroom management, I'll sometimes make an index card like the coffee-infused one in the picture. In this case, I was trying to keep track of the consecutive days in which I Woodenized or reinforced things like the bell is our boss, giving your personal best on provisional writing warm-ups, or the RESPECT callback thing my students and I do.
• 2x10s: Because the effectiveness of this intervention depends on having 10 consecutive non-academic conversations with the target student, I keep track of these in a separate spot from my MGC clipboard. I simply jot down the target student's initials and create 10 checkboxes. (I conduct only two or three 2×10 interventions per year and have yet to be disappointed by the noticeable improvements.)
• MGC attempts (not pictured): This clipboard sheet has one job: tracking my attempted moments of genuine connection. As I wrote about earlier this week, the power of this list comes from the oft-neglected middle group of students. (Read that article here.)
• Pop-Up Debate participation (not pictured): I started keeping a separate clipboard sheet for these when my principal lovingly dinged me on an eval for not tracking formative data in a distinguished manner. The tracker is nonetheless very simple and allows me to keep notes on how individual students are developing.

Those, to me, are the most important little trackers I use. What kinds of things do you keep track of?

Teaching right beside you,

DSJR

A couple weeks ago I made a second PD visit to Traverse City, MI. My work in this district has been focused on developing a single strategy with the middle school teachers there: tracking attempted Moments of Genuine Connection (MGCs). I taught the same session to three consecutive groups of teachers. And as I was going through those reps, I found myself getting clearer on who MGC tracking is really for.

MGC tracking is NOT for the two groups of students you and I will tend to check-in with regularly just on default teacher mode. These two groups are:

1. The students we naturally like and enjoy
2. The students we are most worried about (e.g., I'm picturing a young man in one of my classes this year who has a reputation for behaviors that are not conducive to learning)

If these were the only kinds of students we needed regular connections with, we wouldn't need to keep track.

MGC tracking is PRIMARILY for the middle group of students who don't fall into the two categories above: the quiet ones, the standoffish ones, the shy ones, the ones who are just there doing what they're meant to do but not drawing attention to themselves. In my classroom this year, I'm talking about students like Adam, a freshman in my upperclassman AP Computer Science Principles course who acts like he wants to crawl under his desk when I look at him.

When I had my first MGC with Adam last week, it was very simple, just like the vast majority of my MGC attempts:

• Adam, what got you interested in computer science? [Listen.] What do you like to do outside of school? [Listen.] Very cool. Well listen, Adam — I’m glad I get to be your teacher this year.

(Interestingly, it was on the afternoon of this initial MGC attempt that Adam popped his head into my classroom on the way to his bus and said, “Oh hey, Mr. Stuart! Have a good night!”)

It's this middle group of students that you keep track of your MGCs for because these are the ones who really notice when you have a brief, genuine conversation with them. By simply attempting these moments with that middle group on a regular basis, a teacher will begin to develop a robust and comprehensive Credibility across the whole student body — not just the kids who tend to be popular (Group 1 in my earlier list) or the at-risk ones (Group 2).

Anyways, I found that insight to be clarifying for me during these early, weary weeks of the school year.

Teaching right beside you,

DSJR

P.S. The person who most benefits from the MGC strategy is, in my view, the teacher. There is something about attempting to connect with 150+ diverse human beings each year that inevitably deepens and widens my soul. I remain so grateful to work a job that requires me to love each of my students in this way.

Last year, my student Abby V shared something that I found hilarious: in her bedroom, she has photos of people she looks up to hanging near her door. Her rule for herself is that she is not allowed to leave her room unless she promises not to disappoint them. The list of people was fairly eclectic: Elle Woods (from Legally Blonde), Malala Yousafzai, Princess Diana, Ted Lasso, and her grandma. And the matter-of-fact manner with which she shared this — like, “Of course I have a wall of photos of the people and characters I am not allowed to disappoint. Who doesn't?” — just got me rolling with laughter.

When I shared this with my friend Jim, he said, “Diane McClain, one of my mentor teachers from Burlingame, just an amazing woman in her 70s now, said many times that we all need at least one person in our lives that we cannot stand the idea of disappointing. And in his greater, much earlier days, Tiger Woods said he always imagined himself walking down the fairway every time with Arnold Palmer on one side and Jack Nicklaus on the other. It's a useful and demanding rubric of sorts.”

And when I shared it with my daughter Laura (who is now in ninth grade and is on one of my rosters this year), she and I had a fun time brainstorming all the folks we would put on our wall.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that Abby's wall wasn't just a funny thought — this spunky teenager walking out of her room, vowing not to disappoint the protagonist of Legally Blonde — but was in fact profound. And so a few weeks later, with Abby's permission, I shared the wall with my students and had them write about who would be on their wall.

The responses were all over the place — some whimsical, some profound — and overall, it was probably my favorite writing warm-up prompt of the entire past school year.

I don't have a written writing prompt to share with you — I simply shared Abby's story and Jim's additions with my students and then got them writing — but I'm sure you could make a similar experience in your classroom at some point this fall.

Teaching right beside you,

DSJR

During my most recent workshops in South Dakota, Michigan, and Colorado, I tried to emphasize a simple point: a great teaching strategy should accomplish not just one of your objectives as a teacher but rather many of them simultaneously. In a job as complex and demanding as teaching, we're after maximum bang for the buck. Double duty strategies are essential in the pursuit of more learning and less stress.

Let's look at some illustrative examples from The Will to Learn.

Strategy #1 is Track Attempted Moments of Genuine Connection. (You can dive deep on these here.) When I'm working my MGC clipboard, I'm achieving several things at the same time:

• Cultivating Credibility with students by signaling that I care about them individually
• Cultivating Belonging in the classroom by creating an environment in which every individual is valued, known, and respected
• Crafting mental models of each of my students from which I can better teach them
• Building relational capital with every student in every class period
• Developing interpersonal depth inside of myself (after all, it takes inner work to come to value and respect every single student I teach); this depth has greatly enriched my life outside the classroom

Or take Strategy #7, Woodenization. (Deep dive guide here.) This one really is an attitude toward teaching: if there's something I want my students to do well, it's up to me to clearly teach them how to do it. As I find myself Woodenizing things like notes for learning and how to study during my first weeks of school, I'm accomplishing lots of things at the same time:

• Signaling Credibility by actually teaching them — all of them — how successful learning works
• Signaling Value by teaching even small things (e.g., how to complete the provisional writing warm-up) that too many teachers just assume students know how to do
• Strengthening the Effort and Efficacy beliefs by 1) making good effort clear and 2) making the goal of good effort clear
• Signaling Belonging by teaching ALL students how to put forth effective effort, not just a remedial subset of students
• Making my job a lot easier (as students get clearer on what good effort looks like and begin to put it forth, I have fewer students at risk of failing)
• Creating greater clarity within *me* about what good learning looks like and how it works
• And perhaps paving the way for future parent emails like the following: “[My children], who are in college now, still say that your class taught them not simply world history, but more importantly how to be successful in school.”

That's a long list! And all of these benefits accrue from me just doing one thing: Woodenizing effective effort.

The longer I teach with The Will to Learn strategies, the more I realize just how much they accomplish. It really is true that I can simply seek to be world class at these few things — and I've made an even shorter list of strategies here, what I call the “minimalist approach” to The Will to Learn — and give myself permission to ignore lots of the rest of the things teachers are expected to be great at. (After all, I'm not great at lots of things. This is a huge “secret” to any success I experience as a teacher.)

Anyways — find the double-duty (or quintuple-duty?) strategies and master the heck out of them.

Teaching right beside you,

DSJR

In The Will to Learn, I introduced a strategy called Tracking Attempted Moments of Genuine Connection (MGCs). I've covered MGCs extensively elsewhere on the blog (the most comprehensive treatment can be found here), so today I won't repeat that work. Instead, I'd like to share with you some practical things I've noticed this year as I begin to use the strategy with my students.

• First of all, the initial task of a solid MGC game is building working mental models of each of your students. This model-building work — which starts with simply attaching names to faces and grows from there — is, to me, one of the primary sources of both exhaustion and pleasure during the first couple weeks of school. It's something I have to both work and play at.
• The way I track MGCs, even at the start of the year, is very simple. I'm going to include a shot of what my clipboard looks like right now just to prove what I'm saying. When I help schools launch MGC efforts through in-person workshops or keynotes, one of the most common obstacles they face is teachers making their MGC-tracking overly complicated. The more complex the system, the more likely it is to break down. For me, it must be kept simple.

• MGCs are both work and play, labor and love, authentic and routine. Sometimes folks complain that tracking attempted MGCs takes the magic out of building connections with students. But to me, tracking attempted MGCs just means I'm making regular, systematic room for lots of magic to take place.
• The point is the attempt, not the outcome. I spend exactly zero seconds wondering whether or not a given MGC “worked.” The fact is, MGCs will work when conducted often enough, so long as I make sure I'm working hard to genuinely value, know, and respect each of my students. And, make no mistake: it takes hard inner work for me to like some of my students in this way. But the work is worth it. So long as you're doing this, you don't need to worry about whether or not a student “felt” how you feel about them. Just keep at it; they're smart and receptive, and the signal will get through eventually.
• MGCs, like all 10 of the Will to Learn strategies, do lots of things simultaneously. They:
  • Cultivate Credibility by signaling that I care enough to take a moment to chat with them
  • Cultivate Belonging by creating a space in which students are being shown that they are valued, known, and respected
  • Form a relational base with my students from which I can build more difficult teaching efforts such as Woodenization (Strategy #7 in The Will to Learn), Valued Within exercises (Strategy #6), or Unpacking Outcomes, Good or Bad (Strategy #9).

So, these are some things I'm finding important as I go about the annual tradition of starting out my MGCs. I'd love to hear what you're learning in the comments.

Teaching right beside you,

DSJR

P.S. Today I'm stepping away from the classroom for a minute to speak with secondary educators in Traverse City, MI. This is my second visit to the school system, and our focus is (you guessed it) tracking attempted MGCs.

The other day, I received a text message from the ever-enthusiastic and always-growing educator Mr. David T. Reese. (He wrote a guest blog several years ago that you can read right here.)

David said,

I'm not the boss of you; however, I think it'd be pretty cool if you did an ‘all call' for what people want to Woodenize at the start of this school year. And maybe people can even share documents if they want.

Me? I'm trying to get kids to master what we do with the titles of texts in various genres. What do we put in quotes vs italics/underline?

I love this idea. Let me set it up.

What is Woodenization?

I've written about Woodenization at length elsewhere (Strategy #7 in The Will to Learn; this blog guide), but let me sum it up as follows.

Woodenization is first and foremost an attitude that says, “I assume that if I want my students to do something well, it's my job to be clear about how to do it.” The name comes from Coach John Wooden, who famously taught his collegiate athletes how to put on their socks and tie their shoes on the first day of practice each season.

When Woodenizing, teachers are wise to think in terms of two categories:

• Smallies — stuff that can be taught once, with total clarity, and then reinforced thereafter. Smallies are matters of habit. These are things you can reasonably expect students to have encountered in school before; nonetheless, you teach them clearly and then you reinforce them calmly and religiously.
  • E.g., how to enter the classroom, how to complete the lesson warm-up, how to find assignments on Canvas, how to use the cell phone garage
• Biggies — stuff that needs to be taught multiple times over a time period in order for students to better understand how to do it well. Biggies are matters of skill. These are things where it makes sense that the students you teach would need time, repetition, and modeling in order to improve.
  • E.g., how to take notes for learning, how to increase your writing stamina, how to study

The key question of the Woodenizer is this: what learning-conducive behaviors would I like all of my students to master? From there, pick a few smallies and one biggie that you most want your students to master, and start breaking them down with as much clarity and simplicity and power as you can.

So, what do you want to Woodenize to start this school year?

• Up above, David said he wants to Woodenize how to handle the names of texts in writing. I love this and would guess he'll probably approach it as a smallie: he can teach it once, and then the transformation in his students will come from how well he reinforces it.
• For me right now, I'm Woodenizing notes that facilitate learning (here's that link again for how I do that) and how to bring the power of retrieval practice into both classroom work and homework.

So how about you? Leave your answer in the comments.

Woodenizing right beside you,

DSJR

Tomorrow begins the 20th year of my teaching career, and as of this moment's rosters (sure to change still), I’ve got 153 human beings that I’ll be getting to know in the weeks to come. (One of them, it turns out, is the child of a former student. I knew the day was coming where a parent at orientation would have that “Wait, didn't I teach you?” familiarity to them, but I did not expect it to be this year.)

As I steel my introverted self for the serious labor of getting to know my students, I think of all the folks who helped me to be the teacher I am today.

• I think of Mrs. Donna VonderHoff, who taught me computer science in high school. (I'm teaching an AP Computer Science Principles course this year and am truly terrified .)
• I think of my mom, who gave me feedback on my high school English essays before I turned them in, and what a privilege it is to get to do some of that for students each year.
• I think of Jim Burke, such a mentor and friend, whose life as a classroom teacher/author continues to inspire and encourage me.
• I think of Malcolm X, whose autobiography shifted something inside of me over 20 years ago in my college dormitory as I witnessed how an education transformed a mind and, thereby, a life.
• I think of my colleagues here at Cedar Springs High School, who absolutely spurred me on to becoming better each year, just by them being them.
• I think of my grandfather, who taught me to be lazy in a manner befitting wisdom.

20 years in, heading into a school year still feels daunting. It's that whole, “Wait, do I actually know how to do this?” thing. And so it’s good for me to take a minute to settle my mind and heart on the folks who’ve brought me to this moment. If it were all up to me — just Dave Stuart, all by himself — I'd be doomed.

But it’s not. The teacher my students will meet tomorrow is, in fact, propped up by a massive conspiracy of people who have worked together to make me the guy for the job.

Teaching right beside you,

DSJR

• I give a prompt. E.g.:
  • What was the most interesting thing we studied in Unit 3?
  • Who is the most underrated character in the novel we just read?
• Students spend a few minutes writing about it.
• Once we start the debate:
  • Every student has to speak at least one time. (I keep track on my clipboard and call on students who haven't spoken yet if there's a lull.)
  • No student may speak more than twice (unless I say otherwise).
  • My job is to listen, to coach, and to make notes regarding what I learn about my students, their knowledge, and their skills.
• After the debate, I ask for student feedback on two questions:
  • What did we do well as a class during this Pop-Up Debate?
  • What could we do better next time?

I take what I learn and pick a new skill to teach or model during the next Pop-Up Debate.

There is nothing else that I do with students that produces as much obvious growth over the course of the school year than this simple public speaking ritual. And obviously, I'm bringing over a decade of hard-earned craftsmanship, overlapping mastery objectives, and heart to the strategy as I facilitate. But once upon a time, the simple bullet points above are all I had.

Teaching right beside you,

DSJR

P.S. Digging Deeper Into Pop-Up Debates

What follows is a list of articles I've written on Pop-Up Debates; see also Chapter 4 of These 6 Things.

• The Complete Guide to Pop-Up Debates
• Beyond the Fear of Public Speaking: Making the First Pop-Up Debate a Success for All Students
• Pop-Up Debate Problem: What Do You Do When Students Aren’t Yielding the Floor Well?
• What If a Student Has an Accommodation that Prohibits Speaking in Whole-Class Discussions?
• The Best Pop-Up Debate Prompt in My Repertoire (Valued Within Exercise)
• Tips for Starting Pop-Up Debates Well
• How to Resolve Pop-Up Debate Power Struggles Where a Student Refuses to Speak
• Pop-Up Debates as Comprehension Improvement? Apparently, Yes!
• A Pop-Up Debate for Helping Students Value Writing
• Two Very Different Pop-Up Debates on the Same Day
• 10 Tips for Motivating Students Toward Full Engagement in Pop-Up Debates
• Improving Pop-Up Debates: Better Prompts
• Improving Pop-Up Debates: Tracking the Argument
• Fulkersonian Argument: The Mixture of Debate and Discussion Toward Which Pop-Up Debates Strive

With high schoolers, when I'm introducing my rule about needing to raise your hand before speaking, I just ask them, “Who has ever been in a classroom where the same few students take up all the air time? Or where a few students just keep getting away with blurting out and disrupting the lesson?”

Every hand goes up.

“Okay, now keep your hand up if you've ever found that to be annoying or frustrating.”

Most hands stay up.

“Okay. Look around. That's why I've got this rule here. Not because I'm a control freak, not because I don't want to hear everything you have to say, but because in a room full of thirty-five students, there's got to be a way to protect an enjoyable and productive experience. Being annoyed or frustrated because of undisciplined speaking? Not enjoyable. Not productive.”

Though there's plenty more to classroom management (see below), the master move is to frame it in a way that's desirable to most teachers and students alike.

Because it turns out that most of us just want to have an enjoyable and productive day.

Teaching right beside you,

DSJR

P.S. Digging Deeper Into Classroom Management

What follows is a list of articles I've written on classroom management; see also this mini-course and this truly comprehensive and world-class course by Lynsay Mills Fabio.

• A Complete Classroom Management Guide for an Enjoyable and Productive Learning Environment
• Is Classroom Management Icky? And Does It Even Matter for This Fall?
• The Best Articles on Classroom Management
• CARE: Four Underlying Principles of Classroom Management

Is it special? Of course.

Should you over-stress about it? For sure not.

99% of the power of your first day of school comes down to how well you execute on it for the remainder of the school year.

• Should you establish some rules of the road? Absolutely.
• Get students doing the kind of work you'll expect of them all year? Yessir. (For me, that's writing.)
• Give 'em a taste of who you are and what brought you to this classroom today? Yes, please. (Just keep the autobiography brief because our classes aren't about us!)

So plan some of those kinds of things, and then, if you're going to put stress on yourself to do something, just focus on getting good at teaching. Not too much stress, but yeah — some. Because that's what we're trying to do this year. Get better, get good.

The first day's just an experiment toward that.

Teaching right beside you,

DSJR

P.S. Digging Deeper Into the First Day(s) of School

What follows is a list of articles I've written on the first days of school.

• Everything You Need (and Nothing You Don’t) to Start the School Year Well
• Freaked Out About the First Day of School? Three Quick Things That Help
• The Power of the Humdrum: Why Your First Day of School Isn’t Going to Make or Break Your School Year
• Cures for First Day of School Overwhelm
• Simple Questions on the First Day of School That Teach Purpose
• A First Day of School Activity That Teaches Argument, Which Teaches Thinking (Updated)
• A Simple, Powerful Tweak on the First Day of School Index Card Activity
• First Days of School Writing Prompts
• 42 Prompts to Get Students Speaking or Writing at the Start of the School Year
• The Four Pillars: Defining Success at the Start of the Year (and Often Thereafter)