In Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain, I talk about the importance of improving students’ information processing skills as central to the purpose of culturally responsive teaching. In this series, we will look at the skills teachers need in order to help students “learn how to learn” in the pursuit of liberatory education. Teachers’ ability to coach dependent learners to become more powerful learners requires that they know how to help students become meta-strategic, not just metacognitive.

In this teacher series, we will explore the intersection between Quadrant II (learning partnerships) and Quadrant III (information processing) of the Ready for Rigor™ frame. We will focus on how to build a coaching relationship with students, especially dependent learners to help them level up their learning. I will share tools, teacher moves, and protocol to build the foundational structures and routines of coaching students through productive struggle in the “learning pit”.