Tips for Teachers: 400+ ideas to improve your teaching

Teaching is complex. But there are simple ideas we can enact to help our teaching be more effective. This book contains over 400 such ideas. The ideas come from two sources. First, from the wonderful guests on my Tips for Teachers podcast – education heavyweights such as Dylan Wiliam, Daisy Christodoulou and Tom Sherrington, as well as talented teachers who are not household names but have so much wisdom to share. Then there’s what I have learned from working with amazing teachers and students in hundreds of schools around the world. Inside you will find 22 ideas to enhance mini-whiteboard use, 15 ideas to improve the start of your lesson, 14 ideas to help make Silent Teacher effective, seven ways to respond if a student says they don’t know, and lots, lots more. Each idea can be implemented the very next time you step into a classroom. So, whatever your level of experience, subject or phase, there are plenty of ideas in this book to help take your teaching to the next level.

Book contents

Chapter 1: How to use this book

Chapter 2: Habits and routines Why are habits and routines important?

Chapter 3: The means of participation A challenge

Chapter 4: Checking for understanding

Chapter 5: Responsive teaching

Chapter 6: Planning

Chapter 7: Prior knowledge

Chapter 8: Explanations, modelling and worked examples

Chapter 9: Student practice

Chapter 10: Memory and retrieval

Chapter 11: Homework, marking and feedback

Chapter 12: Improving as a teacher