“Students don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care,” is a common saying among teachers. No matter a teacher’s qualifications, commitment, or experience, her success (and therefore, her students’ successes) depends on the student-teacher relationship, and at the heart of
Think back to what brought you to your job as an educator. Whether you are an administrator or a classroom teacher—and whether you are aware of it or not—your beliefs about schools, classrooms, other administrators, and teachers had a significant influence on your decision to
Each fall students, teachers, and parents join together to support the academic curriculum of their classes. In a typical classroom, the first days of school are allocated to teachers and students getting to know each other and learning the classroom protocol for successful learning. During
We’re big fans of teacher clarity. In fact, “Clarity” is the theme for this school year at the middle and high school where we both work. During Welcome Week, as the first days of school are known, the word clarity populated many of the activities
Over the past few years, Poudre School District in Fort Collins, Colorado, has started a journey to focus on the learning of all students by building and sustaining high performing teams. We are guided by the words of one of our retired principals: Every child deserves to
Benjamin Franklin is often incorrectly attributed as the genius behind the following ancient Chinese proverb: “Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” While the sentiments of those simple sentences may seem to be plain old common sense, the depth
Listen to Jenni Donohoo and Megan Tschannen-Moran discuss demystifying collective efficacy on the Leaders Coaching Leaders podcast with Peter DeWitt: What Is the #1 Factor Influencing Student Achievement?–Collective Teacher Efficacy! Amazing things happen when a school staff shares the belief that they are able to achieve collective
Power from Within Collective teacher efficacy (CTE), the perceptions of teachers in a school that the efforts of the faculty as a whole will have a positive effect on students (Bandura, 1977, 1986, & 1997), has a 1.57 effect size (Eells, 2011, Hattie, 2014). It
Recently the National Education Technology Plan was released by the Department of Education and has outlined many best practices pertaining to innovation. Within the plan, there are five key components that are addressed: learning, teaching, leadership, assessment, and infrastructure. All five of the components are
Reflection is the single most important part of my daily practice as an educator. My blog is the most efficient vehicle for that activity. A year and a half ago, I dragged my feet at the idea of maintaining a blog and actively passed those duties