Category Archive: Schoolwide Improvement
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Friday Forum: Any ideas on how to best share professional development materials?
Friday Forum is a bi-weekly advice column for educators seeking guidance on educations issues. Please join the discussion – we want to hear your stories and suggestions, too!
Q: As a classroom teacher, we are often encouraged to be “teacher leaders”. This, however, is really difficult to do without seeming pushy …
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A Shift in Perspective
Sometimes professional development just works. The pieces come together, and “meaning making” happens. That was the case recently when I was working with a few teachers in my district.
For this PD session, I had planned to spend time on Washington State’s Teacher Principal Evaluation Protocol (TPEP) and classroom-based formative assessments. …
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Friday Forum: What are the best ways to use videos in professional development work?
Friday Forum is a bi-weekly advice column for educators seeking guidance on educations issues. Please join the discussion – we want to hear your stories and suggestions, too!
Q: I wonder if anyone has fresh or creative ideas for me. I have been using the Success at the Core videos for …
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What School Leaders Can Learn from Business
In Good to Great, author Jim Collins introduces readers to the “Hedgehog Concept.” He tells business leaders to imagine three overlapping circles with the questions: What lights your fire (“passion”)? What could you be best at (“best at”)? What makes you money (“driving resource”)? Can this Hedgehog Concept around …
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Professional Development (PD) Doesn’t Have to be a Dirty Word
Let’s face it, professional development – PD – has become a dirty word for many teachers. Why? Because the model of PD that has dominated in schools for years now is often outdated and largely ineffective. Teachers don’t resent the opportunity to improve their craft. What we do resent is …
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“What’s the Point?” Three Tips for Making Content Relevant to Students Today
Yeah, I’m a TED Talk groupie—one of those people. Here is why: Poet/artist/actor Lemon Anderson’s recent ten minute piece, Please Don’t Take My Air Jordans, spellbinds the listener with rhyming couplets and answers the question, “Why does poetry matter?”
In age of video games and Facebook billionaires, I need to …
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We’re Aiming for the Super Bowl
The opening week of the 2012 NFL football season saw a record five rookie starting quarterbacks. A review of the statistics put up by these precocious passers reveals the good, the bad and the ugly.
The second overall pick in the NFL draft, Robert Griffin III, produced the most …
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New Beginnings
Schooling systems move forward by building the capacity of the individuals within the system to do the work. – Michael Fullan, 2011
Like many of my colleagues across the educational spectrum, summer provides the time and opportunity to learn and to grow, reflecting on and re-imagining possibilities for ourselves, our …
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Strange New Worlds
What do you think it takes to be an instructional leader in the 21st century?
Recently, I participated in two professional development offerings to help equip me for this challenge. First, as a Success at the Core (SaC) Fellow, I had the opportunity to learn more about SaC with a small …
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When Leadership Sets off Fireworks in the Classroom
As the Fourth of July approached last week, I found myself humming along to “Firework,” the Katy Perry song blaring on my computer, while a recent camp class’s photo slideshow danced across the screen. At that moment, I couldn’t help but reflect on the cast of characters who passed …
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