The 16 Week Teaching Challenge - Week 1

Welcome to the official launch of our 2025-26 16 Week Teaching Challenge! 

The whole goal of this series of teaching challenges is to focus our first 16 weeks of school on getting really good at the things we already know to do - the 8 High-Leverage Practices of EL that empower students to own their learning. Getting meticulous about the fundamentals by spending two weeks on each practice: 1 week to learn about it and 1 week to put it in action. Nothing new. No long PD session. Just quick learning and easy-to-implement, evidence-based ideas each week that can help us get better at teaching so our students get better at learning. For 16 weeks. 

Each week you complete the challenge, you have the option to enter your success in a Google Form here. Complete at least 12 of the 16 challenges and log them on the form, and a very small (but lovely) prize will find its way to you. Miss a week and want to get caught up? You absolutely can. Just go back, complete those challenges, log your success, and hop right back in.

Want to join in the fun?

Here we go!

Week 1: Aug 11 - Learning About Learning Targets

1. Begin by reading (or rereading) the list of EL Education's 8 High-Leverage Instructional Practices That Empower Students to Own Their Learning, and read the row for Learning Targets most closely. 

2. Then, read the document Using Learning Targets. I encourage you to approach this with fresh eyes; we've heard the term "learning targets" so much, it's easy to have a bit of an "expert blind spot" about them. Print this out, mark it up, and reflect on what this adds to or changes your thinking about learning targets. What new did you glean from it?

3. Last, watch this 5 minute video of a teacher using learning targets at the beginning of a lesson. What do you notice about the teaching? What do you notice about the students?

Completed those 3 tasks? Congratulations! You just completed your Week 1 Learning Challenge. If you want, you can log your success here, and be sure to check back next week - August 18 - for Week 2!

Here's to simply teaching well,