I'm Naming It - Chronic Stress Recovery Syndrome.

I don't respond to things appropriately anymore.  This week, five people were shot and killed four and a half miles from my house, and I have spent very little time thinking about it unless someone else brings it up.  Yet, I overreact to small setbacks during the day and laughed unreasonably hard at a story during this morning's sermon.  It's like the pandemic damaged my barometer.  My colleagues have reported they notice the same thing in themselves.

As it turns out, this is a symptom of dealing with chronic stress, which teachers and other essential workers have definitely been doing since the beginning of the pandemic.  Now that things are returning to somewhat normal, many have been feeling things they had not been during the height of the pandemic. I compare this to getting sick on the first day of Christmas break; your body knows how to power through the time it needs to an allows you to give in when there is a chance to use that energy in other ways.  While most people are calling what we have right now PTSD, I have been searching for another term.  For one thing, I am uncomfortable with the idea of being in the same category as those who have experienced acute trauma, like soldiers who have watched a friend die, kids who have witnessed and/or experienced abuse, or victims of bank robberies.  Our jobs were very hard, but our experience is not an acute high level event; it is a prolonged endurance of physical, mental, and emotional difficulty.  I have spent about a year searching for a name for what we are confronting, and I haven't found it.  Therefore, I have decided to name it myself. I am calling it Chronic Stress Recovery Syndrome.

Let me be clear from the start, I have no expertise or training in psychology.  What I'm good at is learning, so what I am about to talk about comes from reading and listening.  Also, I cannot speak to what this time has been like for doctors, nurses, restraunt employees, or Amazon delivery drivers, all of whom had to reinvent their practice at a time when their services were in the highest demand they had ever experienced.  I can only speak to teaching in my context. For me, that included a spring of remote teaching, a year of hybrid teaching, and year that was supposed to be normal but wasn't (due to the Delta and Omicron variants).  Also, since I have no professional expertise, my intent is to speak to those of us with relatively mild symptoms that we can treat ourselves.  If you are experiencing anything more than that, please seek the help of a qualified professional.

With those disclaimers in mind, here's what I have found.

The symptoms of chronic stress are:

• Fatigue - Teachers all over Twitter are talking about how tired they are.  I've seen things like, "I'm February tired, and it's only October."  (If you aren't an educator, you may not understand the idea of being February tired, but I have written about it before if you are interested.)  Any stress requires physical energy to manage.  During the hybrid year, we were learning so many new things, making decisions without being confident in them, and operating each day using every ounce of energy we had.  Some days, we operated at an energy deficit, and because it was a chronic experience, there wasn't time to refill those stores of depleted energy.  One thing I've learned is that fatigue may present itself differently in some people than others.  In most people, it will feel like exhaustion; in others, it may be muscle aches or soreness.  
• Emotional disregulation - This is what I was talking about at the beginning of the post.  You may overreact to some things and underreact to others.  As teachers, we have to be careful because answering an email from an emotionally dysfunction place can get us in trouble pretty quickly.  I found myself needing to apologize a few times last year for reacting to a student's behavior disproportionately.  
• Frequent headaches, digestive disruptions, and weight changes - Your brain and body are connected, so they tend to influence each other.  Fortunately, this is also part of helping yourself, so keep reading.
• Lowered immune system - Because your energy reserves are being used elsewhere, there isn't energy left for fighting off germs.  This is obviously not ideal in a pandemic.  You may also be more prone to injury and take longer to heal.  

So the news is not good for the chronic stress sufferer.  With time and intention, however, things can get better.  Here are some ways to help yourself, but don't expect it to improve overnight.  Your mind has been through a lot, so in the same way you would give your body time to recover from an injury or surgery, give your brain time to adapt to the new normal.  Here are some things you can do:

• Eat well and exercise - I know you are thinking that you can't possible exercise because you are so tired.  That's the paradox of exercise.  Once you have overcome the inertia, it gives you energy because your body is working the way it should.  If you go outside, you'll also get a much needed hit of vitamin D.  Grab a quick walk during lunch or your planning period, even if it is just five minutes.  Consuming nutrient dense foods will help with your immune deficiency and fatigue as well.
• Breathe well - Have you ever noticed during times of high stress that you take pretty shallow breaths.  You may be tired because you aren't fully oxygenating your blood.  It's posisble you havne't taken a deep breath in two and a half years.  I'm not suggesting that you have to take a yoga class, but a couple of times a day, take a second to notice your breathing and take a few deep breaths in a row.  It will calm you, decrease your heart rate, and help your blood pressure.
• Social interaction - One of the most difficult parts of social distancing was that we were, well, distant.  I went ten and a half weeks without being physically touched by another human being.  Even then, it was hugging my mom about once a week.  Thankfully, I have friends who made the effort to have lunches over Google Meet during that time and who made sure we talked for whatever time we could during the hybrid and depressed year.  We sat far across the room from each other while we ate lunch or after school, but we made each other laugh, which mattered a lot.
• Do things you don't want to - Early last year, when I noticed that I wasn't feeling right, I reached out to our school counselor (speaking of people who are still experiencing chronic stress - they are taking on all of ours - pray for them).  Perhaps the most important piece of advice she gave me was to do things I didn't want to do.  When you aren't mentally healthy, neither are your desires, so what you want to do is probably not what you should do.  You may want to stay home and curl up on the sofa with your cat, but you should do the opposite of that.  Following through on your commitments will help you feel a sense of accomplishment that staying in won't, and you will usually be glad that you participated in the activity once you are there.  Volunteer for something (It doesn't have to be huge, maybe a school activity or a church event that only lasts one day).  Meet a friend for lunch or a card game.  When you feel the pull of the bed or sofa, say out loud, "I should do the opposite of this."  You'll be glad you did.
• Gratitude - It is so easy to slip into cynicism.  It requires no effort at all.  Gratitude takes effort, but it is well worth it.  Unless you are a natural journaler, I'm not suggesting that you start a gratitude journal because you won't keep up with it, and then you'll feel like a failure, which helps nothing.  What I'm suggesting is that each morning or night (or both) that you think of something for which you are grateful.  It could be a small thing, like having enough school supplies when you know other people don't.  It could be a person you love.  It could be the fact that we aren't in masks this year.  It could be the flowers in your front yard or that you have a front yard.  Don't try to force yourself into something with rules (like writing down five things - again, you don't want to set yourself up for failure).  Instead, sit on the edge of the bed and think of something, anything, that you are glad to have in your life.

This will get better, but it isn't going to happen right away.  Every once in a while, notice that you are a little better than you were a week ago or a month ago, and make that one of the things for which you are grateful.  While there is no official diagnosis of Chronic Stress Recovery Syndrome because it is a term I made up, recognize that it includes the word "recovery."  It's not about perfection.  It's about getting better, and you will get better.

Interrelated Variables Make it Hard to Interpret Results

A student once asked me about two related things in physics.  After explaining the differences, he said, "Oh, okay, they're exactly the same except for all the ways they are different."  We laughed a lot about that, but I liked it and have used it for a number of things.  I have a friend / former colleague with whom I share a similar personality and many similar opinions, but we have a few issues on which our opinions are totally opposed.  I use that sentence to describe our friendship.  

Recently, however, I see a ton of things on Edutwitter that exemplify this in a less funny way.  The assumption is that changing one variable will only change one variable without realizing that our lives are interrelated in ways we cannot predict.

When we went into lockdown in the spring of 2020, no one thought it was the educational ideal, but we adapted as best as we possibly could to virtual learning, keeping kids learning something, even though we were not teaching or assessing in the same ways we would have.  More importantly, virtual learning enabled us to keep the kids connected to each other and to us in some small way.  The following year, most schools either remained virtual or forged ahead with a hybrid model, knowing that it wouldn't be the same as being in school face to face, but doing the best we could to protect our students during the pandemic.

A few weeks ago, some research data was released about the academic and mental health impact of the methods we used to keep education moving during the pandemic.  While these numbers should have been no surprise, some on Twitter reacted to them as though they were a bombshell.  The impact on academic achievement was clearly negative due to many kids choosing not to attend virtually at all and others choosing to cheat their way through virtual tests.  While it will take time to address the lack of gains in those years, it can be done.  

The mental health impacts are tougher to interpret and address.  Lockdown is obviously not the sole source of anxiety, but those who want to criticize lockdowns are treating it that way.  Scientifically, it is hard to parse the impact of that one variable because it was coupled with the racial reckoning following the murder of George Floyd and a difficult election cycle (understatement?), which had their own influence on the mental health of youth facing a world in which they would soon vote.  And we may have forgotten that anxiety rates were already on the rise before 2020.   

Twitter and its 280 characters is, however, no place for nuance, so what we read there is more like, "See, we should never have even gone into lockdown" and "I told you remote learning was a joke" and "If we had just left them in schools, they would not have these mental health issues."  The problem with that is that it imagines an alternate universe in which A only impacts B, which is not the universe in which we live.  To quote some Aaron Sorkin screenwriting, "The world is a more interesting place than that."  We live in a world where A influences B and C and D and where C may be influencing A and B in return.  

If we imagine a world in which there had been no lockdown, we wouldn't just have one in which everything else would be the same except for its impact on academic progress and emotional health.  We would be looking at higher transmission rates, a completely overwhelmed hospital system, greater fear of attending school (as we saw in the hybrid year with some making the choice to stay home anyway).  I can tell you from experience that the death of a classmate has massive mental health consequences.  If staying in school had caused the 1% death rate that Dr. Oz and Dr. Phil deemed acceptable, we would be talking about 7-10 deaths in many schools.  I can promise you that would have a negative impact on both academic progress and mental health.

Lockdowns weren't good.  We know that.  Hindsight is 20/20, but we also knew that when we did it.  But attending school during the height of the pandemic would also not have been good.  Even those who won't admit it know that to be true.  Some schools continued to assess and grade students, while others made a different choice.  Some were synchronous while others utilized videos and self-pacing.  We all made the best decision we could with the information we had in our context.  Monday morning quarterbacking on Twitter isn't helpful because there is no way to know what impact a different combination of decisions would have had.

We, as teachers, need to set a better example.  Rather than constantly criticizing and saying, "See, I knew it," we should be teaching our students that solutions aren't simple in a complicated system.  Knowing that could reduce the polarization we see in the world today because we might not always be so certain that we are right all of the time.  If you'll allow one more Aaron Sorkin quote, "Complexity isn't a vice."

They Aren't the Same as Last Year

One of my first major rookie mistakes took place at the beginning of my second year.  I sent an email to the next level of teachers, offering my insight on the behavior of students I had the year before.  (I know. I am in the future also.)  It was not long before my principal came to my room for a chat.  Fortunately, he was a person who understood the difference between a wrong action taken out of malice and one made out of ignorance.  He very kindly said, "Listen, I know you meant well, but you can't do that.  Here's why."  Because of who he was, it was a great learning moment for me; but because of his role, he focused largely on the legal issues involved.  

I now understand the deeper reasons behind why that offer was a bad idea.  And it's simple. Those kids were not the same that year for those teachers that they had been the year before for me.  That understanding began that year and continued until last week and is likely to show up in my life until the day I die.  That year, I had a few students come back to visit.  I taught freshmen in a building that was separated from but adjacent to the rest of the high school (In fact, it wasn't just a different building, it was a separate school called the Freshman Academy.).  When these kids who were now sophomores would walk all the way across campus to visit, I was stunned by how much they had changed over the summer.  I remember saying to one of them, "Where were you last year?  You and I could have gotten some stuff done."  Then we laughed at some silly stories from the previous year.  We don't notice maturing while it's happening because they don't seem that different from one day to the next, but seeing them several months later, it was obvious that a lot of change had happened.

A few years ago, I was observing our 7th-grade science teacher.  I am not built to teach 7th-grade students.  It's just not a skill I possess, and the disastrous experiment of teaching 7th-grade health proved that beyond doubt.  This teacher, on the other hand, was a masterful manager of 7th-grade students.  She knew exactly what to respond to and what to ignore.  The period I was there happened to be one of her more energetic classes, and I was entertained as I sat in the back of the room while they calculate the air pressure on their hands.  One of the more insightful students, knowing I am the 8th-grade science teacher, turned to me and said, "Do you see what you'll have to deal with next year?"  I said, "I'm not worried. Y'all will be different next year."  Several kids were aghast.  They were a little horrified by the idea that they would change, and, even when I asked them if they were the same as they had been in fifth grade, didn't seem to recognize that they had already changed and would continue to as they matured.  The next year, I had a great time with that fun and energetic (but in a more measured way) group of 8th-graders; and they didn't seem to notice that they were different.

Note:  The following stories are about specific people, so I have changed their names.

Speaking of 7th graders, I had a conversation with a custodian a few years ago that made me grateful I am not still being judged on who I was in the 7th grade.  A friend was working on her seating chart for a sophomore class, and this custodian said, "It's a good thing you don't have Kyle Fern.  You'd be in real trouble."  She said, "Why would I be in trouble?  He's great and really fun to teach." The incredulous custodian told her about a time when he left a mess in the restroom (I believe he used the phrase "trashed the restroom") after a play rehearsal.  This event had happened three years before, but he was not ready ot let it go.  Then, he mentioned the same story to me a few days later.  I said, "Kyle's just trying to grow up, so maybe you should let go of what he did once in 7th grade." That boy matured into a delightful young man, who I taught physics during his junior year and who I am proud to have taught. 

Apparently, God wants me to keep this lesson at the front of my mind because He continues to put examples in front of me.  About two weeks into this school year, my math teacher friend said, "You know who I really enjoy this year?  Jack Hill."  I said, "Whew, I'm glad somebody does. He drove me bananas last year."  And he did.  He argued about everything and whined in a way a student should have grown out of by the 8th grade.  We had quite a bit of friction.  Last week, I stopped in her room while she was holding a help session, and he was thinking through a complex problem, answering her questions and just generally being a really great student.  I later said to her, "That is not the boy I knew last year."  Much like that first year, I thought about just how much we could have gotten done together if that had been the kid in my class.

They are not who they were.  They are not yet who they will be.  While you can get valuable insight from the previous year's teacher, you should also not assume that what they have said will be your experience with that student.  Their maturity level is different, and students interact with different teachers in different ways.  Let them show you who they are now.

Credibility: Part 2 - The Power of Not Knowing

Two weeks ago, I wrote about establishing credibility.  I opened with a story about a kid who declared, "She knows everything."  I know a lot of things, but I definitely do not know everything.  I have a job that presents me with daily opportunities to model the power of not knowing, admitting that I don't know, and learning (or very rarely, deciding not to learn) many things.

This week presented an opportunity.  Two students were working on a project and needed to interview someone about the war in Ukraine.  Well-known Ukraine expert that I am, they decided to interview me (Please note the enormous sarcasm in that sentence. They chose me because I was the first person they found who didn't have a class during that period.)  Some of the questions were about my opinion and were simple to answer.  Some required a great deal of speculation.  But there was one I couldn't answer at all.  They asked if I thought the terrain of Ukraine was helpful or harmful to their effort to defend themselves. I don't know where these 8th-grade students found this question, but I definitely wasn't expecting it.  My answer to them was that I don't know enough about geography to give an answer.  Wanting quotes for their project, they attempted to press me for a specific answer.  I said, "No, the answer I gave you was valid. I just don't have enough knowledge to give you an informed opinion."  They decided they were happy enough with my other answers to call it a day, but I don't know if they realized that it is important not just to guess at an answer like that, that is okay to say, "I don't have an opinion on that because I don't know enough."

During the summer, President Biden announced the forgiving of up to ten thousand dollars of federal student loan debt.  Within seconds, people flooded social media with either criticism or praise.  Everyone, it seemed, was an expert on the economic impact of such a move or the theological implications of agreeing with or disagreeing with it.  People's opinions were as strong as they were instantaneous, and I wondered how informed they could possibly be.  I'm certainly not informed enough to have a strong opinion on it, at least not yet.  The one reaction I'm sure is not okay is, "It's not fair. I had to pay mine, so they should have to pay theirs." That's a middle school level understanding of fairness and justice, so I pretty quickly dismissed the thoughts coming from those people.  I don't know if this will increase or decrease inflation, and neither do most of the people spouting about it online.  My natural inclination is to say that if you signed a contract, you knew what you were getting yourself into and should be required to fulfill it, but I also don't know if the interest rates are at usurious levels or how hard to interpret the contract was to the average college freshman.  I just don't know enough to have a strong opinion.

Teachers, we are in the profession of modeling, among other things, appropriate adult behavior.  Admitting we don't know things or don't have enough information to have an opinion on some things is an important thing to model.  It is counter-cultural in the best possible way because it models humility and openness and shows them that education is an ongoing process.  

Bonus: It gives us more credibility when we do actually know something because we haven't bluffed our way through other things.      

Knowing the Name of Something

"Knowing the name of something doesn't mean you understand it." - Richard Feynman

My blog is usually for any teacher, but this one has a much more science teacher focus.  You might still get something out it if you don't teach science, but expect it to be more about teaching science.

This week, I taught Archimedes' Principle, which explains why some things float and others sink.  It's one of my favorite things to teach because of the conversation I get to have with each of my 8th-grade classes.  Here's how it goes.

• I hold up a golf ball and ask if it will float or sink when I put it in water.  Those who have apparently never golfed think it will float.  I drop it in the water, and it sinks.
• I hope up a practice ball that is the same size, but the interior is foam (I've never figured out why they exist as practicing with them would not be the same, but I digress).  They're on to me, so they know that one will float.
• I ask why.  First I get the cheap answers, like "because they are made of different materials" and "because one has more air in it."  I say, "Well, sure, but the question I'm asking is why does that matter?"  
• At some point, a kid who has listened in elementary school says either the word "density" or "buoyancy."  Now, we're cooking.  I respond with, "You say density like you know what it means.  Do you."  Chagrinned expressions abound when they say, "Well, actually, no."
• I tell them that I am going to explain the reason things float or sink without using the word density and that I will then bring it around to density in the end because, while they are not wrong, I want them to understand what that means, not just know the right word.

While this is the most explicit example of this phenomenon of the year, it happens about three times a week in smaller ways.  Students have learned that if they say the word the teacher is looking for, they'll be told "good job" and moved away from.  They know the standard textbook definitions of matter ("anything that takes up space and mass") and energy ("the ability to do work"), which are stupid definitions.  Those definitions aren't wrong, but they certainly aren't helpful.  

Science teachers, we have to slow down and take the time to ask students to elaborate.  When they give the right word, it does not always mean they know what they are talking about.  We have to find out which it is.  If I did not engage in this Archimedes' Principle conversation, students would go on throughout their whole lives knowing the right word to say without understanding the role density plays in floating.  While you might not think that matters, I'm not teaching science if I am only teaching words and not complete ideas.  

This is where it helps to have students understand that you are the expert in the room.  I know the recent "guide on the side rather than sage on the stage" movement has taught you that kids can discover everything they need to know, but they can't.  They can float things and sink them all they want and come to very wrong conclusions, just as people did for thousands of years before Archimedes.  They can go on thinking heavy things fall faster than light ones just as people did for thousands of years before Galileo.  They need you to explicitly tell them things, even if you decide they should experience it afterward.  I have students build aluminum foil boats to apply Archimedes' Principle, but I would never dream of having them do that without the direct instruction first and follow-up reflection on which boats held the most weight after.  

Richard Feynman was one of the great physics teachers of the twentieth century.  His quote above was his philosophy of education.  At one point, he went as far as to say it didn't matter at all whether students knew the name of something; they only needed to understand it, but he ended up reversing that decision because he said people would ask him about something by naming it, and when he told them he didn't know about it they would be shocked and start explaining it, only for him to realize he did know about it but hadn't recognized his name.  In his book The Pleasure of Finding Things Out, he talks a lot about his father and the ways in which he taught young Richard to view the world.  His father was the one who told him how knowing the name of something wasn't the same as knowing about the thing.  That set him on the path to becoming the physicist and professor he eventually became.  Had it not been for his very-much-non-scientist dad, Richard Feynman might not have been the amazing scientist that he was.  

In your classroom, they are students, and you are the teacher.  Be the teacher.  That means that you decide what they are capable of learning from internet research and observation and what you need to explicitly tell them.  It means that when you have them do internet research and hands-on experiences, you have to follow up with formative assessment questions to find out if they learned what you wanted them to learn.  It means you decide what level of mastery they should have to achieve before you move on.  It means you find out whether they know the name of something or whether they actually understand it.

Credibility First

One of my favorite moments of each year happened this week.  A student asked a question, and, as I began to answer it, another student said, "How does she know all of this?"  Other students remind him that I am a teacher, to which he replies, "But she knows everything."  

Let me be clear.  I know a lot of things, but I do not know everything.  I make no attempt to convince students that I know everything.  In fact, I probably say, "I don't know" at least once a class period every day.  They tend to forget that, in part, because I often follow it up with, "but my best guess would be . . ." Rather than recognize that as educated speculation, they forget that I opened with the admission that I didn't actually know.  The reason it is one of my favorite moments isn't that it is good for my ego; it is because I know at that moment that I have established credibility with my class.

There are teachers everywhere who use the phrase "relationships are everything" on their social media and in their conversations and wax eloquent about how they spend the first two weeks just building relationships with their new students.  While I appreciate their intention, I always think about how creeped out I would have felt as a student if any of my teachers had spent the first two weeks trying to bond with me.  We don't expect that from other relationships or professions (with the possible exception of ministers).  When I go to a new doctor,  I first want him to have a medical degree from a good university.  While I want him to be professionally warm and have a good bedside manner, I don't want him to try to make friends with me.  If I needed a lawyer, I might appreciate a personable approach, but before that, I would want to know how many cases he has successfully tried and what kind of law he studied in school.  Relationships would not be "everything" to me; credibility would be.

Please understand that I am not saying the opposite is true.  I'm not saying that relationships are nothing.  I am simply saying that credibility comes first.  Only then do students have any reason to want a relationship with me.  Relationships follow credibility, so let's talk about how to build credibility.

1. Convey your credentials - In the same way, I would want to see a diploma on my doctor's or lawyer's office wall, I do the same thing in my classroom. My college diploma and my teaching certificate are both framed and hanging behind my desk.  I tell my students how many years I have taught the subject I am teaching them.  It may seem like you are bragging on yourself, but what you are really doing is making students comfortable that they are in the hands of someone who knows what they are doing.
2. Keep your word - You tell students a lot of things in the first few days of school.  It may be about rules or procedures or what you are going to put on their first test.  It is always important to keep your word, but it is especially vital during those first couple of weeks.  If you tell them a question is going to be on a quiz, make sure you put that question on that quiz.  If you tell them that something will happen if they don't follow a certain procedure, you have to follow through on that the first time it happens.  (That means you don't make empty threats or promises, so don't say things just to be dramatic.) If you introduce yourself to your students as a person whose word cannot be trusted, you will never get to the point of developing relationships.
3. Take your job seriously - Students can tell the difference between teachers who plan lessons intentionally and those who wing it every day.  They can tell the difference between teachers who grade with care and feedback and those who just give everyone an A (They may say they like the latter, but I've heard them talk about them behind their back. They don't respect them, and they certainly don't do any valuable work for them.) Students can tell the difference between a teacher who manages their classroom to ensure everyone can learn and those who let the class run wild (or conversely are on a power trip).  If you take your job seriously, students see that and respond to it. 
4. Show your enthusiasm - You chose teaching for a reason. It may have been purely that you loved kids or it may have been a love of learning or an excitement for your subject.  Show that to your students.  History was not naturally my favorite subject, but when I had a teacher who truly loved it, he inspired me to read books about Russian Czars (in 7th grade, no less).  And if you want to build relationships, showing enthusiasm is one of the best ways to do that.  People are drawn to those who enjoy things. I get emails from students during breaks, in which they share something they saw out in the wild that reminded them of something I taught them.  They only do that because they know I will be excited about it.

After you have earned credibility with your students, then they will be more naturally inclined to want a relationship with you.  It won't be creepy that you are asking them questions about their lives if they trust you as their teacher. 

Cost Benefit Analysis - Teaching Techniques

If you are a teacher, there is a ton of advice out there about how to do your job better.  While that is a good thing, it is also a daunting thing.  Most of the advice is contradictory because many people write books out of their own philosophy, not out of the results of research.  Some of them try to make you feel guilty for having a different philosophy than that of the author.  Just put those books down.  There is no technique good enough to put yourself through a guilt-inducing book from an arrogant author.  

Even if we filter out all of that and focus only on the good books by authors who care about research, there is still an overwhelming amount of information and advice.  You can't go into your classroom on Tuesday and completely turn your practice upside down to match the book you just read.  Change has to be incremental to be sustainable or even possible.  So, this is a little meta, but I'm going to give you advice about advice to help you sort through all of the advice.

1. Let me shamelessly rip off two quotes from friends of mine.  Andrew Watson opens every session with "Don't do this thing.  Think this way."  He will tell you that knowledge of working memory or growth mindset or any other piece of research will look different in your classroom than it does in the classroom next door.  The researcher had a very specific methodology that you may or may not be able to do, so allow the knowledge to guide your thinking rather than dictate your actions.  Similarly, John Almarode ends his presentations with, "Don't adopt.  Adapt to your context."  In the same way as Andrew, he is telling his audience that they can't just drop a technique and hope for the best.  The way you implement a new technique will be different if you are a high school science teacher than if you were a 3rd-grade Spanish teacher.  So when you read a book, an article, or a blog post, figure out the deeper meaning behind the technique and use your professional judgment to choose the implementation of the idea.
2. Only fix what is broken.  It can be so easy to sit in a professional development session and feel bad about yourself.  If you don't do the thing that is being presented, you may feel like a bad teacher.  Yet, you know that a lot of what you do works.  You have students who learn concepts, develop skills, pass your tests, perform well on AP tests, and succeed in college; so lighten up on yourself.  You also know you have room for growth because everyone does (and you are part of everyone).  Look at your yearly map.  What is the one concept you have trouble explaining clearly or that your kids struggle with most?  Is there a way to approach that differently?  Then, address that one thing this year.  You don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater just because you attended a conference.
3. Some techniques are complex, and they don't work if you don't implement them fully.  It's okay to choose not to use those, but if you only implement the easy parts, don't then blame the technique if it doesn't produce results.  You may have seen recently, for example, some negative feedback about growth-mindset in online conversations.  Schools who were attempting to implement it were not finding the results they felt Carol Dweck had promised.  When looking deeper, however, what happened was that some teachers were introducing it on the first day of school and then never doing any of it again or hanging posters about learning from mistakes but then speaking as people with fixed mindsets.  After a 20 minute seminar, they took away, "Sure, I can tell kids they aren't good at math YET" but didn't take the time to recognize that there is more to it than that.  It's not the fault of the researcher that we apply only a tiny part of a complex practice.  When choosing a technique, take the time to find out if it is okay to pick and choose parts or not.
4. Now, you are ready to choose a technique, guided by the input you just received from a speaker, a book, or a podcast.  How do you choose?  I'm going to suggest that you do a little cost/benefit analysis.  Some techniques are difficult or time intensive to implement.  Not everything that takes a long time to develop or implement is worth the time you put into it, but some things are.  Look at the breadth and depth of the outcome.  If the technique can be used for multiple chapters with the results you want, then it might be worth investing the time it takes to do it.  If there is a technique that takes very little time to implement, try it because any benefit you get out of it will be a good return on that small amount of time.  For example, I recently read a blog post about framing your objectives as questions instead of statements (I would cite this, but I read so many things that I have forgotten the source - like the Learning and the Brain website).  According to the post, evidence shows that students have more sustained attention and slightly better test scores when the objective is presented as something to explore.  This takes me ZERO time to implement because I was already writing the objective on the board, so now I write it as a question rather than a statement.  If there is any result at all, I am looking at an infinite benefit-to-cost ratio.  

Don't be afraid to tweak or drop something that isn't working.  Not all techniques are for everyone.  Even the best technique is not the best match for every class.  Teachers are humans and are able to do some things better than others.  Choose those that will work for your class, with your philosophy, based on your goals.  The science of learning is not meant to prescribe what every teacher must do.  It is meant to give you knowledge of the impact of a variety of strategies so that you can choose what matches you and your classroom goals.  Some may work exactly the way they did in the experiment; some may need a little adjustment to adapt it to your environment.  Some may just not be a good fit for you, and that is okay.