There has been no greater time of change in education than right now. Across the country teachers, schools, districts and entire states are agreeing on the same proficiency standards. As a child I grew up all over the United States, in fact, I could be the poster child for the Common Core State Standards.

As a young learner on the west coast I was doing, “just great,” but in the mid-west I was considered “gifted.” Highly capable me arrived in California to be placed in the remedial class for struggling learners. The vast discrepancies in my “ability” were not because moving made me drastically different as a learner, but because teachers had different expectations. They had different expectations of students, but they also had different approaches entirely. Some effective and others not so much. I’m quite sure the many times I had to paint Styrofoam planets did not lead to deep understandings of the solar system. Did my teachers know the impact they were making on me as a learner?

Over the last couple of years the work of John Hattie has been highlighted in research presentations, professional literature and all over the web. This year John Hattie’s groundbreaking book, Visible Learning, which synthesized more than 15 years of research involving millions of students and the biggest collection of evidence-based research, has been formatted for teachers.