Reach them with Research

Strategies for Reaching Quiet, Disengaged, Struggling, and Troublemaking Students by David Cutler
Edutopia, March 22, 2016

In this straightforward Edutopia blog post, author and mid-career teacher David Cutler differentiates between quiet, disengaged, struggling and troublemaking students and tailors advice for reaching each type of student based on both his classroom experiences and strategies suggested by experts. For example, Cutler suggests allowing disengaged students to select their own essay topics in order to help them discover relevance in writing assignments. And he brings to the surface one of Susan Cain's most important insights for educators: even well-meaning teachers often try to "turn introverts into extroverts" instead of celebrating the strengths - and benefits - of introversion. In applying to his own professional growth the work of Cain, Will Richardson, Rick Wormeli and Alan Kazdin, Cutler provides succinct guidance for how educators can grow their practice with the help of research-based literature. Readers may wish to consider this brief post as an entry point for deeper exploration of the ways to serve each of these unique types of students and as a template for how to integrate the best current thinking into the daily work of teaching.