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Mike Anderson Consulting Mike Anderson Consulting
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  • Home
  • About
    • Brief Overview
    • Curriculum Vitae
    • Testimonials
  • Books
    • Tackling the Motivation Crisis
    • What We Say and How We Say It Matter
    • Teacher Talk that Matters
    • Learning to Choose, Choosing to Learn
    • The Well-Balanced Teacher
    • The Research-Ready Classroom
    • The First Six Weeks of School, 2nd Edition
    • What Every Teacher Needs to Know Series
  • Consulting
  • Online PD
  • Resources
  • Blog
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Great Academic Work

5 Strategies for Keeping Lessons Short

  • By Mike Anderson
  • In Blog, Great Academic Work, Teacher Talk, Teaching Strategies
A friend and colleague of mine, Andy Dousis, once told me that every lesson has three moments: a golden one, a silver one, and a leaden one. Whatever you say in the first 60 seconds of the lesson is the
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Square Pegs and Round Holes: Why I Moved Away From Letter Grades

  • By Kristin Castellano
  • In Blog, Great Academic Work, Motivation
Square pegs and round holes. This phrase plays over and over in my head each time I try to assign a letter grade to my students at the end of a marking period. My students’ learning is so complex, and
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Maybe We Shouldn’t Tell Students to Always Try Their Best

  • By Mike Anderson
  • In Blog, Great Academic Work, Motivation, Social and Emotional Learning, Teacher Talk
Walk through most schools, and you’ll see messages like the ones above, posted in classrooms and in hallways. We often encourage kids, as they’re about to work to “try your best” or “put in max effort.” One year in
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Can You Really Own Something You Didn’t Choose?

  • By Tom Tuscano
  • In Great Academic Work, Mike's Blog, Motivation, Student Choice, Teaching Strategies
“How’d it go?” On the surface, it is such a basic question. I’ve been asked that question plenty of times in my life. After a sports game, doctor’s appointment, or school meeting, not to mention that nerve-wracking best man’s speech
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3 Planning Moves to Reenergize Your Teaching

  • By Mike Anderson
  • In Blog, Great Academic Work, Health and Balance, Mike's Blog, Student Choice, Teaching Strategies, Ted Lasso
In the final episode of Season I of Ted Lasso, players are somber and nervous heading into a do-or-die match against a superior team. Ted decides they all need to try something new, so he invites the players to name
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Helping Students Become More Self-Motivated

  • By Mike Anderson
  • In Blog, Great Academic Work, Mike's Blog, Motivation, Teaching Strategies, Video
In this vlog post, published through Eduplanet21, I share a story about a student who seemed motivated but wasn’t really self-motivated. She was always seeking my approval: “Is this okay? Is it good enough?” I tell about how I helped
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100 Ideas for Awesome Academic Work in the Last Weeks of School

  • By Mike Anderson
  • In Blog, Great Academic Work, Mike's Blog, Motivation, Student Choice, Teaching Strategies, The Ebb and Flow of the School Year
Don’t look now, but the end of the school year isn’t far away. Of course, we know how important the first weeks of school are, but what about the last weeks of school? Surely, this is just as important a
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As Students Return to School, Don’t Focus on SEL or Academics: Do Both

  • By Mike Anderson
  • In Blog, Great Academic Work, Mike's Blog, Motivation, Social and Emotional Learning, Student Choice, Teaching Strategies
As schools welcome more and more students back through their doors, we’re all trying to figure out the best way to do so. It seems as though there are two wildly different needs we must address. As I talk with
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Overcoming Our Motivation Crisis

  • By Mike Anderson
  • In Audio, Great Academic Work, Interviews, Mike's Blog, Motivation, Social and Emotional Learning, Teaching Strategies
As educators, we all want our students to be motivated. Teachers and schools often pour immense amounts of energy into trying to motivate students, yet often it seems like the more we try, the less kids care. What’s going on?
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4 Things to Stop Saying to Your Students: Resolution Ideas for Teachers

  • By Mike Anderson
  • In Blog, Classroom Management, Great Academic Work, Mike's Blog, Social and Emotional Learning, Teacher Talk, Teaching Strategies, Uncategorized
Teacher language can be a great focus for a New Year’s resolution. After all, we all use language with students, and we all surely have some habits that could use some refinement. Often, some of our language habits don’t line
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Tap into Self-Motivation with an At-Home Project

  • By Mike Anderson
  • In For Parents, From Surviving to Thriving, From Surviving to Thriving, Great Academic Work, Mike's Blog, Motivation, Student Choice, Teaching Strategies
You want at-home learning to feel purposeful and engaging for students, but you don’t want to further overwhelm yourself with work. What if there was a way to both boost student engagement and reduce the daily assigning, correcting, and keeping
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3 Reasons + 5 Tips = GR8 Games

  • By Sarah Fillion
  • In Blog, Classroom Management, Equity, From Surviving to Thriving, From Surviving to Thriving, Great Academic Work, Mike's Blog, Motivation, Teaching Strategies
Games can boost engagement and learning for students while also reducing teacher workload--a win-win!
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Want to Reduce Your Workload and Boost Student Learning? Try This One Powerful Strategy

  • By Mike Anderson
  • In Blog, From Surviving to Thriving, Great Academic Work, Homework, Mike's Blog, Motivation, Social and Emotional Learning, Student Choice, Teaching Strategies, Uncategorized, Work Life Balance
What if there was a learning strategy that boosted student engagement, had many (many!) academic benefits for students, and reduced teacher planning and correcting/grading time? Great news! There is–and it’s a tried and true strategy you have probably been using
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Shifting from Extrinsic to Intrinsic Motivation

  • By David Davis
  • In Blog, Great Academic Work, Homework, Mike's Blog, Motivation, Social and Emotional Learning, Student Choice
It might be the understatement of the summer that teachers, students, parents, and administrators are anxious about the upcoming school year.   In addition to the priorities of health, safety, and equity of access to education in this COVID-19 period, distance
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A Deep-Dive Into Learner-Centered Education

  • By Mike Anderson
  • In Great Academic Work, In the Media, Interviews, Motivation, Student Choice, Teacher Talk, Video
I was delighted to join a group of deep thinkers for an in-depth panel discussion about leaner-centered education. Hosted by Julie Mountcastle of the Slate School, this conversation is rich and engaging. You’ll hear about the importance of cherishing children’s
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Self-Care as a Professional Responsibility

  • By Mike Anderson
  • In Audio, Blog, Great Academic Work, Health and Balance, Homework, In the Media, Interviews, Mike's Blog, Social and Emotional Learning, Student Choice, Teacher Talk, Work Life Balance
A Conversation with Mike Anderson, Little Things First This is part 3 of a four-part series on how to support educators in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.   In this conversation with the Little Things First podcast hosts, Tracy
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Start Planning with Your “Why” Instead of Your “What” and “How”

  • By Mike Anderson
  • In Blog, Great Academic Work, Mike's Blog, Motivation, Student Choice
A high school math teacher is recording short lessons on his phone in his basement, using a dry erase board and marker as he explains new math concepts. He posts the videos and then offers one-on-one and small group coaching
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Our Classroom Walls

  • By Mike Anderson
  • In Articles, Classroom Management, Great Academic Work
This article appeared in the Responsive Classroom Newsletter: November 2015 (https://www.responsiveclassroom.org/article/our-classroom-walls) During the school day we spend most of our time in our classroom and so do twenty to thirty students (give or take a few!). Many of us feel
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Social-Emotional Learning and Academics: Better Together

  • By Mike Anderson
  • In Articles, Great Academic Work
This article was published in the October 2015 edition of Educational Leadership (Emotionally Healthy Kids) as an online-only article. It explores how social and emotional skills are woven throughout the Common Core State Standards and what that means for good
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The Trouble with Testing

  • By Mike Anderson
  • In Articles, Great Academic Work
When I first began my teaching career in the early 1990’s, it felt like an exciting time to be in education. There was incredible momentum building for rich, multi-layered, developmentally appropriate teaching. The reading and
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Classroom Displays: Keep the Focus on Student Work

  • By Mike Anderson
  • In Great Academic Work
Original Article: http://www.ascd.org/ascd-express/vol6/613-anderson.aspx?utm_source=ascdexpress&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=express613 Displays are essential tools for supporting students’ learning and making the classroom feel welcoming and engaging. They’re also something that most teachers enjoy doing—and sometimes overdoing! It’s tempting to cover classroom walls with bright, beautiful—and teacher-chosen—charts, maps, posters,
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Homework: An Unwelcome Guest

  • By Mike Anderson
  • In Great Academic Work
Original Article: https://www.responsiveclassroom.org/blog/homework-unwelcome-guest Most Thursday nights, our family joins two other families for what we all call “Dinner and a Show.” We congregate at one of our houses, the kids play together and we all enjoy some appetizers. The kids (seven
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Holiday Celebrations

  • By Mike Anderson
  • In Articles, Great Academic Work, The Ebb and Flow of the School Year
Winter holiday celebrations! They’re such a big part of American school life. But as our schools grow more diverse, traditional celebrations can leave some children and families feeling excluded or uncomfortable. Also, even if everyone at
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Keep Learning Going During Holiday & Vacation Times

  • By Mike Anderson
  • In Great Academic Work, The Ebb and Flow of the School Year
Original Article: https://www.responsiveclassroom.org/article/keep-learning-going-during-holiday-vacation-times Adapted from Responsive blog posts by Mike Anderson and Margaret Wilson Responsive Classroom Newsletter: November 2010 Suddenly, it seems like the class
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A Comfortable Way to Work

  • By Mike Anderson
  • In Classroom Management, Great Academic Work
Original Article: https://www.responsiveclassroom.org/blog/comfortable-way-work I remember one third grader who really struggled with sitting still. If I’d required him to sit while he worked, it would have been really hard for him to get anything done. This child needed to move to
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