A frequently asked question by Montessori elementary teachers at the beginning of the year is how to set up an effective expectation for student work performance and how to balance this structured plan with the spontaneity of student-chosen subjects. Maybe this has come about because most adults (including Montessori guides), have acquired a conventional construct for…
Delivering a quality Montessori experience for your students is a lot of work. You prepare and maintain an environment and curriculum that meets every child’s needs, you guide children to uphold their part of a community agreement, you report student progress to parents and administrators: the job of a Montessori guide can be overwhelming and…
Excitement as is related to learning is defined as a heightened state of physiological arousal exemplified by an increased heart rate and blood pressure, and higher emotional and attention. What many educators are not as aware of is how excitement can be harnessed to accelerate learning, and how Montessori educators have built-in mechanisms…
When a teacher demonstrates how to do a procedural task, like a math problem, going through the sequence of steps to the solution, this is known as a worked example. Worked Examples Work Our daughter learned to play the guitar primarily from watching Youtube videos! This is a perfect example of how…
Learning by watching others is called observational learning, something every Montessori practitioner experiences every day! Observation Through Millennia People can often learn a lot just by watching others perform a task. In fact, this kind of learning is what has propelled mankind for millennia and is thought to be behind the concept of…
Twenty-seven years ago, I stepped into a Montessori classroom for the very first time. The five year old boy that I was a nanny for forgot to collect the novel he was writing at school, so I parked my car and followed him inside to collect it from the 1970’s home converted into a school.…