Practical Teaching Tips with Richard James Rogers

Like many early-career educators, I believed that equality, which means giving all students the same tasks, the same resources, and the same deadlines, was the fairest way to teach. However, time and experience taught me that equity, not equality, is what truly transforms learning. It involves giving each student what they need to succeed. Sometimes that means providing different forms of support to different learners.This episode is accompanied by a blog post at https://richardjamesrogers.com/2025/06/01/equity-vs-equality-in-education-what-ive-learned-from-the-front-lines/Book me to train your team at: https://richardjamesrogers.com/professional-development/Check out my books for teachers at https://richardjamesrogers.com/books-for-teachers/

Success in high school is not just about hard work: it’s about working smart, using proven strategies that boost learning, memory, and motivation. In today's episode I describe 10 powerful tips, distilled from years of classroom experience and research-backed methods, to help students achieve their full potential.This episode is accompanied by a blog post at https://richardjamesrogers.com/2025/04/27/10-tips-to-help-high-school-students-achieve-high-performance/Check out my books on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/stores/Richard-James-Rogers/author/B017OVU06QCheck out my blog for teachers at https://richardjamesrogers.com/Check out my merchandise store at https://richardjamesrogers.com/

In my twenty years of teaching, I’ve come across numerous pedagogical techniques designed to boost student learning, but few have been as transformative as interleaving. This technique, backed by cognitive science, has the power to enhance long-term retention and application of knowledge: yet it remains underutilised in many secondary school classrooms. Today, I want to explore generalisable rules for interleaving (a structured approach that any secondary school teacher can apply) and one that, to my knowledge, has never been formally outlined before. Accompanying blog post: https://richardjamesrogers.com/2025/03/09/how-interleaving-works-universal-strategies-for-secondary-school-classroom-practice/Check out my award-winning book for teachers, The Quick Guide to Classroom Management?: 45 Secrets That All High School Teachers Need to Know, here: https://www.amazon.com/Quick-Guide-Classroom-Management-Teachers-dp-B08VCQPF2L/dp/B08VCQPF2L/ref=dp_ob_title_bkBjork, E. L., & Bjork, R. A. (2011). Making things hard on yourself, but in a good way: Creating desirable difficulties to enhance learning. Psychology and the Real World: Essays Illustrating Fundamental Contributions to Society, 56-64.Pan, S. C., Tajran, J., Lovelett, J., Osuna, J., & Rickard, T. C. (2019). Does interleaved practice enhance foreign language learning? The effects of training schedule on vocabulary learning. Journal of Educational Psychology, 111(8), 1172–1181.Rohrer, D., & Taylor, K. (2007). The shuffling of mathematics problems improves learning. Instructional Science, 35(6), 481-498.Keep, B. (2022) ‘The spaced practice effect: what it is and how to leverage it’, Benjamin Keep, 15 December. Available at: https://www.benjaminkeep.com/the-spaced-practice-effect-what-it-is-and-how-to-leverage-it/ (Accessed: 9 March 2025).Rogers, R. (2022) ‘Deep learning vs surface learning’, Richard James Rogers, 24 May. Available at: https://richardjamesrogers.com/2022/05/24/deep-learning-vs-surface-learning/ (Accessed: 9 March 2025).

Stepping into a senior leadership team (SLT) role for the first time can be both exhilarating and daunting. Recently, I was appointed as the Acting Head of Secondary at an international school in Thailand, and to gain deeper insights into the role, I reached out to SLT members in other schools for their best advice. Their responses provided me with invaluable lessons that I am now applying in my leadership journey. Check out my blog for teachers at https://richardjamesrogers.com/ Blog post: Starting Out as an SLT Member: What I Learned from the Experts Blog post: Working With Colleagues: The Gossip Mill Produces Toxic Flour Check out my award-winning book, The Quick Guide to Classroom Management: 45 Secrets That All High School Teachers Need to Know

Imagine mentoring a trainee teacher who’s eager to become the best educator they can be but feels unsure of where to start. If you could offer just ONE piece of advice to guide them, what would it be? Tune in today to hear my perspective on this important question! Check out my award-winning book for teachers - The Quick Guide to Classroom Management: 45 Secrets That All High School Teachers Need to Know Check out my second book entitled The Power of Praise: Empowering Students Through Positive Feedback Check out my blog for teachers at richardjamesrogers.com Instagram: @richard_james_rogers

One massive part of the work we do as teachers is the finding, storing and organising of resources for use in our lessons. These could be worksheets, slides, exam papers, tools to help with reporting, learning games, and a whole array other valuable items. It takes a while, however, for teachers to learn how to manage all of this in a way that is efficient - so that precious time is not wasted re-finding resources, or doing things from scratch (again). In today's episode, I delve into the techniques and systems I use, and have used, to successfully organise all of my resources (paper-based, physical and digital). Check out my ward-winning book: The Quick Guide to Classroom Management: 45 Secrets That All High School Teachers Need to Know, here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1505701945/ Check out my second book, The Power of Praise: Empowering Students Through Positive Feedback, here: https://www.amazon.com/Power-Praise-Empowering-Students-Pedagogical-ebook-dp-B07WJXG4XJ/dp/B07WJXG4XJ/ Check out my blog for teachers, which has been running since 2015 and is a treasure trove of wisdom, here: https://richardjamesrogers.com/ Contact me at info@richardjamesrogers.com

Is it possible to apply a consistent structure to every lesson we teach, whilst still retaining our creative freedom as teachers? I believe so. That's why I've created the Basic Lesson Structure (BLS), which can be applied to any lesson, at any level. Check out my award-winning book, The Quick Guide to Classroom Management: 45 Secrets That All High School Teachers Need to Know, here: https://www.amazon.com/Quick-Guide-Classroom-Management-Teachers-dp-B08VCQPF2L/dp/B08VCQPF2L/ Check out my blog for teachers at https://richardjamesrogers.com/ Check out my blog index for teachers, which contains a list (with links) to all of my blog posts: https://richardjamesrogers.com/blog-index/ Blog post on Learning Journals: https://richardjamesrogers.com/2018/02/18/learning-journals-a-powerful-student-feedback-system/ Blog post on Active Engagement: https://richardjamesrogers.com/2022/09/18/5-exceptional-tips-for-teachers-to-engagestudents/ Blog post on starter activities: https://richardjamesrogers.com/2016/03/04/7-starter-activities-for-pgce-students-and-newly-qualified-teachers/ Blog post on plenary activities: https://richardjamesrogers.com/2018/02/25/7-plenary-activities-for-pgce-students-and-newly-qualified-teachers/

As educators, we’re always on the lookout for strategies that can enhance our students’ understanding and retention of information. One such strategy that has gained significant attention in recent years is dual coding. But what exactly is dual coding, and how can it be applied in our classrooms to make a tangible difference? Drawing from my own experiences since I started teaching Science and Maths in 2006, let’s dive into the concept and its practical application. This podcast episode comes with an accompanying blog post at: https://richardjamesrogers.com/2024/09/02/what-is-dual-coding/ Check out my popular blog post on Cognitive Load Theory, here: https://richardjamesrogers.com/2020/10/25/what-is-cognitive-load-theory/ Check out my award-winning book for high school teachers, The Quick Guide to Classroom Management, here: https://www.amazon.com/Quick-Guide-Classroom-Management-Teachers-dp-B08VCQPF2L/dp/B08VCQPF2L/ E-mail me at info@richardjamesrogers.com for topic requests and/or feedback