Teachers are action-oriented. We appreciate theories, and respect their importance, but when the bell rings we know we need concrete strategies that help us meet our students’ needs.

Kareem and I founded MCP as classroom teachers, and our goal has always been to share the techniques we developed in our own classrooms, in such a way that educators like you can pick them up and apply them tomorrow. While our approach is informed by research and theory, it is centered around classroom-tested tools that any teacher, anywhere, can start using at any time. We provide these tools because of our third core value: Change starts every day.

Here are a few changes you can make, starting today, to better meet each of your students’ needs:

1. Record a video.

   Don’t worry about making this perfect - it will never be. Just start a solo Zoom meeting (or equivalent), hit the record button, and explain something you know well. You’ve recorded a video! Now you can share this with students who fall behind or miss class… and you can use it for the rest of your teaching career, too. Here are a few additional tips.
   
   

2. Create a student-facing progress tracker. 

   Make a simple checklist of all the things your students must do to master your next unit. Make it look nice, and give it to your students. They are now ready to take control of their own learning, with you providing support as needed. Here are a few examples from our educators.
   
   

3. Make sure your students get it.

   Think of an upcoming lesson. What question must your students be able to answer to show that they’ve really mastered your content? Write that question down, and give it to each of your students. And don’t let any student advance to the next lesson until they get it right! This is how you build real understanding - and here’s a template you can use to get started.

Here I am speaking with the founder of the Teacher Wellness Center about a few simple things you can do to start transforming your classroom right away:

What students and teachers need are techniques that work NOW. We are relentless in our efforts to develop actionable solutions to immediate needs, and deeply committed to continuous improvement. We are redesigning instruction from the ground up.

If you share these values get started on the Free Online Course to begin implementing in your Modern Classroom.