In this episode, I’m joined by @S_Oberle and @organizedbinder, co-authors of Executive Functions for Every K–3 Classroom. Their work focuses on the cognitive processes that underlie successful learning. Wow, episode 30 already! educationrickshaw.com/2026/0…

A $500 drone can destroy a $3 million dollar tank. Incredible. My son writes about the evolution of warfare since the start of the war between Ukraine and Russia. open.substack.com/pub/theame…

The editors of Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy and Practice are producing a special issue honoring the work of Paul Black. I was asked to write about our 1998 paper on formative assessment and our follow-up work; you can read it here: bit.ly/4nEkoGc

🚨New episode now live! Thomas Briggs and David Shuck join me to discuss why bad education ideas can persist—even in the face of evidence. We unpack flawed advanced math placement decisions, San Francisco's detracking experiment, the New York math briefs controversy, discussing what went wrong and why. Link below 👇

A school sent me NWEA MAP math data who have been using Facts on Fire this year. 6 min/day using a combo of taped problems & timed retrieval practice. Its amazing what teachers can accomplish with their students when given empirically validated interventions & materials.

We don’t talk nearly enough about the right standards in education. Yes, there are content standards students are expected to learn every year, but arguably even more important are the standards of learning established in your classroom from day one. Do students clearly know and understand the how and why behind the standards by which they learn in your classroom? Do they know the standard for how we create a flashcard? The how and why behind turn-and-talks? Keeping eyes on the speaker during cold calling? Starting class quietly with the Do Now in progress? Cleaning and holding up mini whiteboards correctly? Transitioning from one activity to another? If those standards are not explicitly taught, consistently reinforced every single day, and students redirected when they fall short — if they aren’t creating flashcards that meet the standard, revising their retrieval practice with a red pen and markings in the way it has been established, capping markers and placing them at the front of their desks when finished, or meeting the standard for any routine and procedure— then the content standards ultimately matter far less. Because achieving those content standards becomes far less efficient, and in some cases, nearly impossible.

This is a hugely important piece by @PamelaSnow2. A very insightful application of cognitive load theory to neurodivergence and trauma-informed classroom practice. To the best of my knowledge there is no research on this topic and this has really illuminated my understanding on the topic both as a researcher but more importantly as a SEN parent. I do hope Pam explores this area further. pamelasnow.blogspot.com/2026…

Ok, it's kind of last minute but you can join me at noon eastern tomorrow for a fun little one hour webinar on brushing up your cold call. If you use the technique and want to study a few videos and get a little better, come join me: teachlikeachampion.org/works…

Teachers just love watching kids play with shiny things, and writing on the walls these days. It drives me crazy. The "concreteness assumption" and the idea that physical materials are a mandatory, long-term prerequisite, is one of the most persistent myths in math education. While the C-R-A (Concrete-Representational-Abstract) sequence has a role, however, mandating "mastery" of the concrete stage can actually backfire. Cognitive science research (like the work of Kaminski and Sloutsky) shows that "perceptually rich" materials often distract students with irrelevant details, making it harder for them to "transfer" their knowledge to new problems. The key is actually concreteness fading: moving to abstract symbols as quickly as possible so students can focus on the underlying mathematical structure rather than the physical object. As John Mighton points out, trapping kids in the concrete phase can create unnecessary educational hierarchies and actually overload their working memory with "real-world" noise that has nothing to do with the math. It's much more effective to bridge to abstraction early through small, successful symbolic steps. This is a glaring example of how a little knowledge can be a very dangerous thing in education.

Terrific opening keynote at @researchED_US New York with @nsachdeva2019

“In a study of 2,000 parents, more than 70 percent said they trust report cards more than standardized test scores” hechingerreport.org/proof-po…

The expensive education consultants flooding your district every year are not bringing you research. They are bringing you a sales pitch dressed as research. They commission research on their own product. They restrict the sample to schools already positioned to succeed. They bury the inconvenient results in data tables. They market the outliers as the headline. Before your district writes another check, read this. open.substack.com/pub/therut…? @rastokke I thought of your podcast when I got the email.

Next on Knowledge-Building for Teachers Series: Behavior Featuring: @organizedbinder @S_Oberle @coachdowley @ThinkForwardEdu @NathanielRSwain @ollie_lovell @tombennett71 @C_Hendrick @New_Old_Paul @DrJimHeal @learnwithmrlee @TeachersOnFire @Joshua__Stamper

Reading posts like this from @Doug_Lemov affirms and inspires hope. Thank you Doug.

The big PD companies have been running the same play for decades. - Commission research on your own product - Restrict the sample to schools already positioned to succeed. - Bury the inconvenient results in data tables. - Market the outliers as the headline. - Solution Tree's new PLC at Work study is a textbook execution. I broke down exactly how it works at The Ruthless Teacher. theruthlessteacher.substack.…

Amen to this.

This paper is a great example of what happens when an entire field (education academia) organises itself around a philosophy of learning rather than a science of it. In the first page, there is a bizarre section which seems to imply that explicit instruction of Maths is in some way "authoritarian". Readers are invited to associate explicit instruction in mathematics with the erosion of democratic governance across Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas. sites.exeter.ac.uk/pmej/wp-c…

Show me a classroom that is “student- centered” and I’ll show you the two or three students it’s centered around.