ABSTRACT
Teacher facilitation of learning is the most powerful way to attain strong academic achievement for students. Days of "the lesson" must give way to days of powerful facilitation. Facilitation of learning is a complex skill that is highly dependent upon the learner, as not every learner needs the same coaching to succeed. Therefore, a good facilitator quickly assesses the situation and the learner's needs, and then offers assistance or asks questions based on that assessment. True learning begins with a challenge that presents a level of cognitive dissonance: the gap between what the learner already knows and what is yet to be learned. Making thinking transparent is particularly important when teaching students reading of informational text across the content areas. While at first glance it might make sense for the language arts teacher to instruct students in reading, in fact the experience will be more rich and robust if content area teachers make their thinking transparent.
