The Faculty Lounge

Notes from the Lounge

Real talk about teaching.

Recent Posts

How to Make the Most of Your Planning Period

Your planning period is about 47 minutes and it gets taken. How to decide what it is for and protect it.

How to Cultivate Student Leaders in Authentic Ways

Hart's Ladder, the belonging research, and the structures that give students real decisions.

Claude for Teachers: Your Free Digital Teaching Assistant is Here

Anthropic's free Claude for Teachers gives US K-12 educators a year of premium AI. What it does, how to sign up, and whether it's safe.

Classroom management strategies that actually work

Not the ones from your education program. The ones teachers actually use on a Tuesday in February.

Advice for First-Year Teachers

Practical, honest advice for year one, beyond what teacher prep programs teach.

How to Find a Teaching Mentor

Where to look, how to ask, and how to make the relationship actually work.

Building Classroom Community

Practical strategies for creating a classroom where students feel known and connected.

Building an AI Policy for Your Classroom

How to set clear, fair expectations for AI use that keep students learning.

What AI Is Actually Good at for Grading

Where AI genuinely helps with grading, where it falls short, and how to keep feedback yours.

The Danielson Framework

The four domains of teaching responsibility, what each covers, and why the framework matters.

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Frequently asked questions

Quick answers about the blog.

Teachers do. Notes from the Lounge is real talk about the job, written by educators for educators, covering classroom management, new teacher life, AI in the classroom, mentorship, and more.

No. The blog is free to read, no account and no sign-in required. Just open a post and dig in.

Practical, honest pieces on things like classroom management that actually works, advice for first-year teachers, how teachers are really using AI day to day, and how to find a teaching mentor.

New pieces are added as teachers write them. The best way to catch them is to check back or follow The Faculty Lounge.