Thinking around IBD Precepts:
Charting
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Chart everything, and refer to charts often
Chart for a reason, not just for the sake of charting
Whatever you chart, students should enter in their notebooks
Thinking
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Never do the thinking that students should do
Let students draws conclusions—teachers should not be concluding for them
Whenever students ask you a question, don’t answer it—turn it back to the individual, or the
group
Students write to think, and write to discover, and write to explore, and write to…
Every student is a good thinker, even if skills don’t match the thinking—yet
Stop and quick-write whenever students need to collect their thoughts or discover what they’re
thinking
Pedagogy
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Model what you wish students to do—even if you think you have something better to do
Create the circumstances that allow for the greatest number of participants
Let students find the textual evidence; never find it for them
Let the learning target guide the whole lesson, and revisit it during the closing session
One good essential question (interpretive question) is enough to last several sessions
Students should talk to each other, not the teacher
The teacher is a facilitator only, not the font of knowledge
Learning is a collaborative activity
There are no wrong answers
Students should talk a lot; teachers should talk little
Depth is better than breadth
There is no such thing as “coverage”
Reading/ Writing
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Re-writes are OK to meet standard
Students will eagerly revise when their writing is authentic
Students should be surrounded by attractive books and have opportunities to talk to each other
about those books
Time spent reading choice books independently is time well-spent
Reading and writing are integrated and inter-related
Rituals/ Routines
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Rituals and routines provide safety and enhance learning
Not much has to be graded summatively—and only when students are ready
Every class has a focus lesson, a work period, and a reflective closing meeting
When students really learn, they don’t have to pretend to learn
Every student wants to do well
Engaged students who have ownership in their classroom are not management problems
Created by Elizabeth Duffey 2011