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Differentiation TechniqueFind The Controversy

Read The Overview: Find The Controversy in Any Topic

By leveraging a point of contention, we can get students interested in just about any topic. Yes, even boring old spelling has controversy we can exploit!

Specific Examples of “Find The Controversy”

Help my students remember these confusing terms!

Help my students remember these confusing terms!

If you want students to memorize, you can't aim for memorize. You have to aim higher – and then memorization comes along for free.

Two Questions I Won’t Ask About A Famous Quote

Two Questions I Won’t Ask About A Famous Quote

Let's do more than ask, "What did this person mean?"

Universal Themes and… Punctuation!?

Universal Themes and… Punctuation!?

Here's how can we move a punctuation lesson beyond mere memorization and towards actually interesting thinking.

Tickling Curiosity

Let's look at a way to encourage and scaffold curiosity in our classes using a "Book of Unanswered Questions." Begin by sharing intriguing objects or images and asking your own questions. Give kids a chance to find answers to their questions. Then encourage students to bring in their own intriguing conversation starters. Finally, move students towards curriculum based questions.

Running A Curiosity Project

Merlin Mann stated that employees’ motivation increases when they get to “build a robot” once in a while. That is, do something creative beyond regular work. Can we do this at school? Offices have “casual Fridays,” can we have “curiosity Fridays?"

A Clock Math Project?

A reader wrote in, asking how to differentiate for a task like reading analog clocks. What to do with a student who has mastered this skill? What's a good math clock project?

Depth and Complexity: Ethics… In Math!?

The Ethics prompt of depth and complexity fits so easily into the humanities… but what about ethics in math?!

Three Videos With Mind-Blowing Optical Illusions

Paradoxes and illusions are a great area of study to blow students' minds. I recently discovered an amazing artist, Kokichi Sugihara, who creates and films optical illusions using just paper and balls.

Paradox: Does Majority Rule?

A quick, but challenging discussion topic for any age: "Is it always fair to make decisions based on a majority vote?"

No Street Names In Japan?

Do your learners use the tool 👓 multiple perspectives to analyze stories, problems, and historical events? Here's a TED Talk about real-life multiple perspectives that will make your students (and you!) reconsider basic assumptions.

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