At EA gratitude isn't just a November thing. It's a June thing too and this week's WDYN makes the case, with research, book recs, and a David Foster Wallace detour. Last one of the 2025-2026 school year (but lots more writing to come in the summer months).

What makes experiential learning stick isn't the experience. It's the design around it. This week's WDYN: PBL's contested research, the far transfer problem, and why we might choose to think of novelty as infrastructure and not an extra (occasionally).

Pizza Hut brought back Book It. We built a reading list. Felt right. Six books for summer from the CTL.

The end of the year doesn't have to just happen to you. This week's WDYN offers a series of tools and inspiration for a better ending. The final pages are still being written. Make them count.

Students aren't confused about the AI/honesty line. They're deciding every day whether crossing it costs them anything. This week's WDYN: what the research says, what's shifted, and why honesty might be the most underrated thing we could actually teach.

The best interventions for student learning aren't add-ons. They're just good teaching, done deliberately. This week's WDYN looks at the "craft" of teaching.

A celebration is also an argument. This week's WDYN makes the case for the arts: with research, a field guide, and a clock made of people.

STEM is having a moment: in theaters, in orbit, and this week in the hallways of The Episcopal Academy. This week's WDYN rides that energy: what does it look like to teach the way the best researchers think?

What if student motivation isn't a personality trait, but instead a design problem? New WDYN has three resources worth your time this week—especially in April.

Very cool finding: even young children (6-10 yr old) can prioritize more "important" material for restudy, although the ability to make good choices about what to study & what was learned seemed stronger among the older (9-10yr old) students. #PsychSciSky #AcademicSky #EduSky doi.org/10.1111/cdev...

Courtesy is April's Stripe at EA. This week's WDYN: the research (or lack thereof), a 60-second clip worth stealing, and lesson design as an act of respect.

With spring break at EA just around the corner, this week's WDYN is built around one idea: the conditions that make learning stick are often the same ones that make rest restorative. New research, a good book rec, and a case for doing nothing.

Change in classrooms happens at every level — mid-lesson, across a unit, across a career. This week's WDYN looks at all three, plus a bird migration visualization that reframes the whole thing. What are you adapting right now?

The Marshmallow Test is more myth than method. Willpower is less useful than a good workaround. And what might drama and improv teach us about self-regulation? Plus: Parkinson's Law applies to your grading pile too. This week's WDYN:

The research was already in the classroom. Andrew just started counting. A simple ritual, a tally counter, and a question worth asking. Read how CTL Research Coordinator an upper school Spanish teacher Andrew Shimrock turned a frustrating class into a fascinating study. 🛫

We haven't done a dedicated AI edition in a while. A lot has changed—and some things haven't. Get the judgment right. The rest is just tools. This week's WDYN:

It’s not good enough to say “it works for me”. How do you know? What are the criteria by which you’d change your mind? If there are none, you have insulated yourself from reality. open.substack.com/pub/daviddid...

New WDYN: The Unlearning Edition. Not what to learn next. What to examine first. Three pieces on feedback, emotional expression, and what evaluation pressure does to teachers — not just students.

New WDYN: The Builders Edition 🔨 February is a good time to recover some time. We're sharing ways to find what you've saved, borrow from good curation, and build the small tools your classroom actually needs.

Open Classroom Week reminded us that teaching is a full-contact sport. The movement. The language. The constant recalibration. Most of what makes it work is invisible—until you really watch. This week's WDYN takes a closer look.

Who’s doing the thinking? This week’s WDYN looks at AI, judgment, and visibility—drawing on Paul Kirschner, using NotebookLM as a stress test, and linking it to Open Classroom Week as a forcing function for shared professional learning.

WDYN—The Intersection Edition Labs → classrooms → student lives AI → assignments → intentions Practice → fluency → thinking The work isn’t replacing what works. It’s knowing what to build on.

Soon....

January loves outcomes. Learning depends on rituals. This week’s WDYN is about courage in practice—what we keep, what we drop, and what we commit to doing again tomorrow. Less reinvention. More intention.

As winter break approaches, this week’s WDYN leans into the pause. -Settle what already works. -Notice the light (apricity is a great word). -Carry a few good companions into January. No optimization. Just a quieter handoff.

Assessment works differently when explanation is unavoidable. Reflections on oral assessment, AI as a speed bump, and seeing student thinking more clearly with InitialView's new platform, Viva.

New WDYN out now: Expectation. Curiosity. Possibility. A quick-read toolkit for teachers navigating exam season, adolescence, and their own well-being.

Teaching’s Moneyball moment is here: small data, clear sightlines, teacher-led inquiry. We’re building the architecture for it in @eactl.bsky.social. .

New WDYN is out: memory that matters, teaching as part paradox and part adaptive expertise, and 8 myths about emotional intelligence. Plus a Tom Stoppard mic drop on the power of words in an AI era. Something for everyone this week. episcopalacademyctl.substack.com/p/what-do-yo...

This week’s WDYN is all about feedback—grading tweaks that help learning, feedback that builds trust, & why teachers want AI class summaries, not endless personalization. Plus: a perfect Gary Oldman/Nolan clip on why strong relationships make feedback effortless.

💥Super cool new job ad alert 💥 The @uncschoolofed.bsky.social is seeking a 12-month, fixed-term faculty Director for our new BA in Elementary Education program! This person will play a critical role growing this exciting new program! Apply by 1/5/26 Details here: unc.peopleadmin.com/postings/309...

Our Student Advisory Board is digging into Instructional Illusions this afternoon—already spotting where “good” teaching doesn’t equal good learning.

Attention is the rarest form of generosity. This week’s WDYN Wednesday is about noticing what’s good—and being changed by what we see.

It’s Rivalry Week at EA — a reminder that the best performances, on the field or in the classroom, come from preparation and care. Good coaching and good teaching share the same playbook: clear goals, calm under pressure, and care for the people doing the work. 🏅 #RivalryWeek #WDYNWednesday

This week’s WDYN gets a little spooky. 👻 Behind every strong lesson is a bit of mystery, a well-placed trick, and a treat worth sharing. From Webb’s Depth of Knowledge to curiosity and AI design—peek behind the curtain with us.

Our very own Senor Shimrock is on HOCO duty tonight. A real man of the people.

What do a pit crew, a Pixar co-founder, a Pomona professor, and the Principles of Instruction have in common? They all remind us that teaching gets better at the edges. 🧠 WDYN Wednesday: Small Moves for Bigger Learning

I love when my colleagues do good work & make that work public. That’s been happening more frequently via Substack of late. Here’s my @eactl.bsky.social colleague Andrew Shimrock doing so with a healthy dose of inspiration from Robert Talbert’s Grading for Growth work.

Delighted to welcome students and teachers from Archmere Academy this morning to explore our Center for Teaching & Learning—diving into the Science of Learning, the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning, and what it means to translate research into practice.

I'm taking a deep dive into the (potential) benefits of 2-stage testing. I'm sharing the following slides with students today. I need to write this up, but I'm excited about what we've learned so far. (Small sample size, blah blah. We'll do it all year.)

Long weekend. Short week. Endless grading. This week’s WDYN Wednesday shares 3 quick reads to make feedback count—and grades mean less.

Agency, trust, and the real work of learning. This week’s WDYN spans the new book Pedagogies of Voice, middle school trust, Daisy Christodoulou on why learning can’t always be fun, and the two jobs of teaching.

What can a simple classroom ritual—and a pitch counter—reveal about language learning? More than you’d think it turns out. And just in time for playoff baseball season and our ‘Sportsmanship’ Stripe of the Month here at EA. #GoPhils ⚾️

🎉 Our 100th Beacon Post! This week’s WDYN digs into design for learning: – Oli Cav’s timeless slide rules – Jim Heal on retrieval routines – Carl Hendrick on learning from mistakes

This plus a side of choral response in MS chorus? ✅

Where’s attention right now in your class—and how do you know? This week's WDYN takes a look at: mechanics of attention, first-five minute routines, ASR, and a 90-sec clip on productive boredom.

Our first ‘AI Studio—Where Play Meets Practice’ kicks off shortly! A recurring space where educators tinker with AI tools, experiment freely, and uncover classroom-ready ideas.

Families don’t remember your slides at Back-to-School Night. They remember how you made them feel. This week’s WDYN: Challenge. Nurture. Inspire.

Early September is all mise en place—routines half-formed, names sticking, energy high. In this week’s WDYN: 🔪AI as sous-chef 🎁85+ study tips in 10 minutes 🧠Unlearning “learning styles" 💦 A 'Last Word' on muddy puddles vs. leaky ceilings.