Colleen Fangman retweetledi
Structure, Engagement, and Restoration: A Blueprint for Transformational Teaching
What does a high-impact classroom look like? It starts with structure—where the physical layout allows teachers to work the crowd and connect quickly with every student. But it doesn’t stop there.
Educators who maximize student success design lessons that are rigorous, engaging, and efficient. They explicitly teach and reinforce rules and routines until they become second nature. They use proximity and purposeful movement, and they provide descriptive feedback using Praise, Prompt, and Leave. They use Visual Instructional Plans so students always know what to do next. They make lessons meaningful through authentic tasks.
They teach through Say, See, Do: learning by doing, with constant input and output. They engineer lessons around cooperative learning using PIES—Positive Interdependence, Individual Accountability, Equal Participation, and Simultaneous Interaction.
And most importantly, they transform students into learners by embedding the five strategies of formative assessment:
•Students know the learning target and how success is measured.
•They understand the relevance of what they’re learning.
•They self-assess and set goals.
•They engage in peer feedback to stay focused on learning.
Limit setting is handled with calm, consistent, clear body language. Disruptions don’t derail the room—students are coached back on track through refocus and corrective teaching, not punishment.
And when more is needed, we don’t fall back on zero-tolerance. We move forward with Restorative Practices. This is not a program—it’s a way of being. It’s about healing, repairing, and building stronger individuals and a stronger school community.
This is what teaching can be—and what our students deserve
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