In most job interviews, I believe the interviewers have the one question. They will ask lots of things, look at resumes and transcripts, but there is one question that he or she really cares about, that makes the difference in his or her final decision. The question may be different for each person on an interview panel, but I believe it’s there. When I… Read more →
Here is a Differentiated Instruction strategy my PLC is sharing with the campus as part of our staff development day this week. Each PLC on campus is putting together some sort of static display describing how DI has impacted their classroom this year. We will than have time to visit the displays and learn from our peers. The 8th-Grade Math PLC… Read more →
In our campus leadership meeting this month, we discussed how to sustain transformation. Our campus has championed some big changes in attitude and practice as we’ve worked to implement PLCs at Work in the model of Solution Tree. We read the article Sustaining Improvement Efforts Over the Long Run by Craig Jerald and listed some of the keys to keep… Read more →
I recently read Walking Papers in which Francesco Clark tells the story of his spinal cord injury that left him paralyzed. He describes the treatments he has sought out, how he has dealt with a variety of attitudes within the medical profession, and how he has started a business creating skin care treatments. The medical professionals provide a great analogy… Read more →
My PLC wrote a list of the key skills and concepts we want our students to know. The idea of these power standards is very powerful, but we sure made some mistakes along the way… and we keep finding more mistakes. When we reflected on last year, we realized that we had written power standards, but we didn’t pay much… Read more →
Our campus teachers have been following the model of Professional Learning Communities: We focus on Learning, Collaboration, and Results. This year, many of us realized our weakest link was our Power Standards, our curriculum. As the year has rolled on, I continue to see how shoring up our Power Standards has paid dividends I never anticipated. Power Standards: The Solution… Read more →