Dr. Randy Pausch, in his landmark book The Last Lecture spoke of brick walls as indicators of how much we wanted something. If we see them as excuses to stop, we may not have really wanted to achieve the goal. I wonder if he also
This weekend is a small respite for many educators, but we all know there are still a few more weeks until the highly anticipated Winter Break. You’ve started planning your festivities with family, but this is also a great time to get some holiday reading
A note for those who design PD for CCSS and STEM New, and very good, curricula and technologies (such as CCSS and STEM) are ready for implementation, but designing professional development that will enable them to fulfill their promises is a challenge. Textbooks are appearing, but
Standards Don’t Teach. . . Teachers Do! How to Improve Classroom Success Dear Colleagues, It’s easy to get personally overwhelmed in today’s day and age. We are bombarded by the 24/7 news cycle, constant e-mails, social media, and a world (for good and for bad) that is
Recently, I returned from leading the pilgrimage of El Camino de Santiago, the medieval path across the north of Spain. This pilgrimage is much more than a beautiful walk. It is much more than a destination, or the repetition of footsteps along the path. It
This post was originally published on Pauline Zdonek’s blog. I was afforded the amazing opportunity to attend the 2015 Teaching Learning Coaching Conference in Denver these past few days. To say I enjoyed the conference is an understatement. As I sit here in the Denver airport
The un-asked question is how to engage students in deeper learning, such as being innovative, creative, and entrepreneurial? The NCR report (2012, p. 13) uses the following six elements: Using multiple and varied representations of concepts; Encouraging elaboration, questioning and explanation; Engaging learners in challenging tasks;
Several years ago, Response to Intervention (RTI) was the hottest educational buzzword of the day. RTI trainings popped up all over the country, much attention was placed on implementation, schools set up RTI teams, and new books on the topic rolled off the press at
In my work helping schools and districts across the nation and abroad transition from a traditional “one-day sit and get” model of professional development to more effective and engaging models of job-embedded professional learning such as inquiry/action research and Professional Learning Communities (PLCs), I often
