First, a word of caution...this pick is the result of a four year messy journey and a 17 page paper (that I helped author) about the struggles of trying to figure out how to teach. For those who do not have a lot of time, I will give you the one page executive summary. I found myself professionaly and personaly struggling with my teaching career. Each week I decided to put on paper, or in a blog, one concrete action that I could take that I was pretty sure would help at least one student. After almost three years and close to a hundred entries, the entries were separated into categories by multiple people. The result was pretty clear....my biggest struggles were with assessment. How do I really know what students know or what they have learned? Thanks to Dr. Ellen Yezierski at Miami Univesity Ohio and Dr. Jordan Harshman at University Nebraska Lincoln we were able to come up with an action plan that uses "Data Driven Inquiry". Essentially, do your best to find out what students do and do not know as a teacher. Tackle the topics they are not sure about with proven, vetted and researched teaching methods and check again. Sounds simple and seems like common sense but in reality it is difficult to do...but not impossible. And...in the end...the data shows it really does work. Interested? Check out the article we collaborated on and published in the Journal of Teacher Action Research. I would love to read your comments.