Dear Stakeholders, Thank you.
Being thankful is a life skill that everyone should practice every day. We all have something to be grateful for. The Thanksgiving holiday is just around the corner, and a heightened sense of gratitude comes with this holiday. With everything there is to be thankful for, there’s no doubt that teachers are at the top […]
A Time to Give Thanks
As the leaves become a beautiful display of an autumn array of colors, my mind often turns to reflection and gratitude. As the leaves change colors, I can’t help feeling grateful for the many things in my life that have changed who I am. Specifically, technological advances have challenged me and caused me to grow […]
The Importance of Parent Resources
Educating a student typically includes three parties: The teacher, the student, and the parent or guardian. Education changes all of the time. Curriculum, resources, and, indeed, technology have changed over the years and continue to do so. Parent resources are essential because, for example, many parents were not taught the style of Math in the […]
The Importance of Parent Resources #2
Educating a student typically includes three parties: The teacher, the student, and the parent or guardian. Education changes all of the time. Curriculum, resources, and, indeed, technology have changed over the years and continue to do so. Parent resources are essential because, for example, many parents were not taught the style of Math in the […]
Explicit Instruction is Essential
Over the years, I have worked with hundreds of fragile learners, which has opened my eyes to the importance of pedagogy. Teaching is an art as well as a science. Explicit Instruction is proven to decrease learning gaps and reinforce the learning of others. Explicit Instruction is overtly teaching skills or concepts. It helps establish […]
Supporting Deeper Learning in Schools
We are living in a busy time in education. Changes in instruction, assessment, and content resources are impacted by technological innovations, cultural and political forces, and economic impulses on local, national, and global levels. One area of focus that resonates across the aforementioned factors is the concept of deeper learning. Understanding this movement and how […]
Engaging Students with Shorter Attention Spans
Over the years, I’ve noticed that my students’ attention spans have decreased. This is a trend that is unsettling for educators and educational stakeholders. I have not changed my expectations. However, I have noticed that students lack the stamina to read longer books, sustain attention for long periods to watch educational video clips, and become […]
Facilitating Learning vs. Teaching
Teaching is often described as a professional practice with dispositions and beliefs in both the humanist and the scientist. Most notably, this binary was identified as part of the popular consciousness view of education by C.P. Snow in his work The Two Cultures. It is important to note that Snow’s premise sees this separation as a false […]
Balance In All Things
An Educator’s perspective on the balance in all things in the classroom. Change is inevitable. School curriculum has changed several times, standards have changed, and technology offers a wide variety of new ways to teach subjects that didn’t exist less than a decade ago. Talk to a veteran school teacher, and they will tell you […]
Teacher Modeling
While sitting in a driver’s education class is essential, no one knows how to drive a car until they experience physically driving a car. The process of both teaching and learning takes time and practice, and it is best applied when there is someone there helping you along the way. This person is a “model” […]
Classroom Communities: Building a Successful Classroom
Teresa Marchant Structural Engineers are experts in the construction field. They ensure that buildings will stand the test of time. For example, construction workers install footings before pouring the foundation. Footings are what have to contact with the ground and ultimately support the building. Similarly, educators build classroom communities. From my experience, four main footings […]
Engagement by Design and the Power of Intentionality
Craig Perrier A collection of topics and ideas in education project an aura of timelessness. You know this select core of terms like assessment, instruction, relationships, and standards. They have driven education and been impacted by the field’s shifting landscape. But, among this conceptual canon exists a practice that simultaneously underlies and often eludes the […]
An Educator’s Summer
While students are away from school this summer, many educators will become students. They will participate in various learning opportunities offered through their district or other educational institutions over the next few months. This time will allow them to become familiar with their curriculum and tools and build community support. Last week, my district […]
New Curriculum: Supporting Innovation in Schools and Districts
The summer allows educators to recharge, reflect, and innovate their practices with students and colleagues. I find this annually recurring phase of the profession to be an essential aspect of the field. Moreover, the summer is also an ideal time to design and prepare to implement new curriculum features. This includes instructional and assessment items, […]
Moving Up The Ladder Together: Thoughts on How to Prevent Summer Slide
Summer slide is the tendency for students, especially those from low-income families, to lose some of the achievement gains they made during the previous school year. Research indicates that 2.5 months of reading and 2.5 months of math skills are lost over a summer. Are there exceptions? Of course. Is summer slide” typical? Absolutely. The […]
Prevention of Summer Slide
Teresa Marchant As students hang up their backpacks and head into Summer, educators worry about how their students will spend this time away from school. We fear that our students that have made progress during the school year will return to school in the fall without retaining all skills from the prior year. Knowing that […]
How to prevent the “Summer Slide”
Is Summer Slide avoidable? During my twelve years of teaching secondary social studies, I would voice an opinion that was usually a very unpopular one with my colleagues. My sentiment was “summer break is too long.” I am not sure how well this position had aged, but why I held it is still very clear […]
Social-Emotional Learning and Data that Matters
COVID 19 has pushed into the spotlight one aspect of education focuses on student well-being. That this has always been an important, necessary topic to devote time and resources to goes without saying. But, COVID 19, as significant events tend to do, elevated what was on the margins of our attention and made Social Emotional […]
Consistency is Key
Consistency is Key Life can get pretty monotonous, but the routines that we have to provide structure and purpose to our lives. They give us a foundation, ground us, and keep us focused on our goals. What is consistency? Consistency is being intentional about your routines and expectations. It is building habits through everyday actions […]
Using Data Wisely in the Education Market
Generally, school administrators look for the overall school performance, class information, and individual students’ scores to help determine the implementation of new programs, allocate resources, and staffing all by using data wisely. As learning standards are revised on a state and local level, it becomes necessary to review the current resources available. Classes or grade […]
Renewing Assessment and Rethinking Data Collecting: An Educational Renaissance
This month some colleagues and I came to an exciting conclusion about our profession. After discussing the use of data and shifting priorities, we agreed that education is experiencing an assessment renaissance. We also agreed that the reasons for the shifts originate from multiple sources, including state, district, and school-based policies and practices. Most […]
Using Data To Create A Positive School Culture
Data from testing alone is not always adequate. We need to know our students, and most teachers do. Our students are more than a test score; so are our teachers. However, our emphasis on testing has muted individual strengths and success. We need to use our data wisely, not just to rank schools or students […]
The Value of Stability
By now, a large number of educators have returned to their classrooms. But have we returned to normal? Not really. The toll on students’ and educators’ mental health and social-emotional needs continues to grow. Burnout and coronavirus anxiety are still surging after a high-stress year of virtual learning. At the same time, districts face shortages […]
School Climate
Improving the School Experience for All Students When the American learning environment looks different than any of us expected, what can educators and staff do to improve the school climate? What is the school climate? Like other kinds of environments, a school climate is all the elements that make up the learning environment. The concept […]