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Coaching Up: How Teachers Can Support School Leaders ’ Capacity for Positively Influencing School-wide Instruction
“The importance of school principals may not have been stated strongly enough in prior work, particularly from the perspective of state and district leaders and policymakers seeking to move the...
Increasing Engagement During Online Practice Opportunities
Scanning the room as a fifth-grade class engages in an online practice tool, I see the whole range of student behaviors: Some students are practicing as the teacher intended, some...
Bet You Didn’t Know: Chicken Eggs and Research
Chicken eggs arrived. We set up our incubator. We placed the eggs inside the incubator. We collected wonders about the eggs on sticky notes and displayed them. I knew we...
Color Coding: An Organizational Strategy
Recently my daughter Megan and I were shopping in a nearby town when she asked if I minded stopping in Bed, Bath, and Beyond. “Um, sure. What are you looking...
Coaching from Teachers’ Strengths
As a principal for the last 16 years, I have had many opportunities to sit in classrooms to learn with teachers and students. One question I ask myself when observing...
Poetry Friday Stretches Into Poetry Slam
For years in my classroom, we have started every Friday by reading poetry. Poetry Friday is an idea that we've shared for quite a while. The students arrive and settle...
Poetry Strategies for Partners and Groups
Because of its personal nature, writing poetry is usually a solitary activity. But a fun and energetic alternative is to write poems with a partner or a whole group. In...
Stay Curious
One of my favorite shows is Ted Lasso. In one of the most famous scenes, Ted and Rebecca are in the local pub, where they encounter her ex-husband, Rupert, a...
Sparking Curiosity: Developing Ownership of Learning Through “What If” Questions
Playing a role across subject areas, inquiry is at the heart of discovery and learning. Whether it is drawing inferences from text, engaging in problem-based learning, or changing variables while...
PL…See? Lightening Up PLCs to Increase Engagement
When you mention an upcoming PLC meeting to your staff, what reaction do you receive? Is it eye-rolling, a slight sigh, or an aggressive grunt? If you are met with...
Detours: A Reminder of the Humanity of Students
It would have been like any other Monday of the school year. The students would have come in, answered the daily attendance question, done 10 minutes of independent reading, attended...
Increasing Student Choice
“What are we doing today?” “How long does it have to be?” “Does this sound right?” “How much do I have to get done today?” We hear these questions often....
Minilessons and Writing Instruction
“Writers, it's time to set yourselves up for writing workshop!” As the children bustled around the room, I voiced-over the routines I was noticing writers engaging in or hoping they...
Plagued by Plagiarism
Like a stereotypical Gen Xer, I definitely experienced hands-off parenting as a child. My parents didn't hover over my homework time or build my model of a California mission for...
Balancing Ambition with Humility
It’s hard to imagine an instructional leader or a coach who isn’t passionate about change. We like to call them agents of change. What these agents are aware of is...
Developing an Ambitious Vision with Humility
Agents of change and leaders with high levels of ambition know that ambition is the driving force behind progress and innovation. Ambitious leaders set high-reaching goals, dream big, and work...
Dealing with Overwhelm
When school started in August, teachers returned to the building as always with big plans for all the amazing things they were going to do with their students. They were...
Three Archetypes as Advocates for the Science of Reading
My goal when navigating professional conversations around the science of reading is not to try to change people’s minds. They often have too many sunk costs in a limited view...
Bridging the Gap (Session 1): The Sold a Story Peel
Finally, it was Christmas break. My son was graduating from high school in just a few months, and this was my chance to have a good chunk of time to...
Creating a Teacher Notetaking System
Sometimes I feel like our reading intervention room should have a revolving door rather than the typical classroom door on hinges. So many kids pass through that door each day....
Anchor Charts: A Tool for Every Classroom
I gather students in our meeting area and begin our minilesson on character development. I remind students that today we are looking at how authors reveal characters to us and...
