Small Shifts. More Student Thinking.
A Small Shift is one manageable change to a lesson you already teach, made on purpose so students have to think more.
No new curriculum and no overhaul. One lesson, one change, and a clear idea of what you will look for while students work.
Bring a lesson you already teach. Leave with a manageable change that creates more opportunity for student thinking.
Four moves, one lesson
A Small Shift is small on purpose. It has to fit inside a lesson you are already teaching, or it will not happen.
Start with a lesson you already teach
No new unit and no new curriculum. Bring the lesson you are teaching next week, exactly as it is.
Select one Human Standard
Name the capacity you want this lesson to develop: think critically, seek truth, make meaning, build community, or another of the ten.
Make one manageable change
Change a single move in the lesson so students have to compare, decide, explain, or justify rather than simply complete.
Decide what evidence to notice
Name what you will look for while students work, so the change is visible to you and to them.
One change, in practice
A problem-solving or design task, in any subject.
Students choose a solution
The task lays out options and students pick one. A choice can be made in a single line, with no reasoning attached to it.
Students compare two options, identify trade-offs, and justify a decision
Same task, same content, one changed move. Students now hold two possibilities at once, weigh what each one gains and costs, and defend the decision they make.
What it develops
Think Critically, with Judgment running across it
What you notice as evidence
- Which trade-offs students name, and which ones they miss
- Whether the justification points back to evidence or criteria
- Where a student changes their mind after hearing a peer’s reasoning
Small Shifts isn’t a separate philosophy
It uses the frameworks you already have. It does not add another.
Small Shifts is one way to use the HUMAN Framework for Assessment in the lesson you are already teaching. The change is built from the HUMAN moves, not from a new set of principles.
Comparing two options and justifying a decision is Make Thinking Visible in practice: students explain and document the decisions behind their work. If students use AI to explore those options, Navigate AI Intentionally is the companion move: the tool can widen the options, and the student stays responsible for the trade-offs and the final decision.
The Human Standards sit above both, naming the capacities the lesson develops. A Small Shift is simply a deliberate way to develop one of them inside work you were already going to do.
Bring a lesson you already teach. Leave with a manageable change that creates more opportunity for student thinking.
Workshops & Coaching
Bring Small Shifts to your team.
Run it as a workshop, a half-day or full-day session, a series, or ongoing coaching, planned around the lessons your teachers are already teaching.