TL;DR: Plan and execute a strategic process for creating and communicating your school’s brand. Create a brand you want people to hear, see, and feel when they interact with your school district. Your school’s brand is how you do things. It is your culture. It is the WHY that drives you. And it’s the WAY you achieve your goals. Create … Read More
5 Tips for Better Grading
TL;DR: Grade better by aligning all of your assessments and creating clear feedback measures. Eliminate unnecessary assignments and involve students in the process. Use tech tools and verbal feedback whenever possible. Coming back to school means many things: students in our rooms, interacting and building relationships in person, learning to instruct in person and online simultaneously. But it also means … Read More
4 Tips to Reimagine Assessment
TL;DR: Assessment should be a series of events, each leading to the next moment of improvement. Reimagine assessment by determining what you value and seeking assessment that leads to instruction. Understand that “one and done” is not enough and consider consistency and recency when assessing. As I am writing this, March Madness is ramping up. It is my favorite time … Read More
Superhero Teachers Empower Superhero Students
TL;DR: Superhero teachers create and empower superhero students. Creating thriving super-students comes down to these big ideas: nurturing heart, developing mind, and cultivating will. Teaching isn’t about grades, standards, and tests. It’s about inspiring the inner superhero of each child. “All our energy has gone into stretching kids’ cognitive abilities and neglecting the human side—the source of energy, joy, inspiration, … Read More
Tag Out
TL;DR: Instead of doing a walkthrough, administrators can do a tag out. This allows the teacher a chance to do a walkthrough in a room of one of their peers. With tag outs, educators get the time to learn from their peers. This provides them an opportunity to learn more than they might if they were being observed by an … Read More