Often when I talk to educators, they tell me about some exciting, wonderful sounding program they’ve started in their classroom. Unfortunately, the next sentence goes something like, “But my principal/superintendent saw the kids working happily away, buzzing with excitement and constructive collaboration. I got called in and told to stop it. I tried to defend it, but he/she said – where’s the research that shows it’s effective?”

Ah yes, the death knell for anything that looks fun in the class...