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Mid-Workshop Conversations
Okay, readers, go ahead: find a friend to share your thinking about the book you’re reading. The classroom teacher says these words without much fuss and noise, and students quickly...
“Get a Little on Ya”: Coaching Teachers Through Change
A consultant who worked with our school district once told us at a professional development session, “Go back to your classrooms and give it a try. You have to get...
Fostering Change with Student Work
As a literacy coach within my district, I find myself promoting district initiatives that require teachers to take on new curriculum. For some teachers this means letting go of cherished...
Goal Setting with Google Spreadsheets
Early in the school year I was contacted by a fifth-grade teacher asking for a way to help her students keep track of their own learning and to set goals...
Screencasting Professional Development
One of the biggest barriers to professional learning is simply that of finding the time. Teachers have so much on their plate that actually finding time to attend a workshop,...
Picture It: Museum Walk with Quotes
When transitioning from one focus to another in a professional development session, we find that using quotes gives teachers a taste of new learning through another person's perspective. At the...
Why I Love Having a Coach
This year, our district put literacy and math coaches in place at the elementary level. I knew I’d love having a coach, but I had no idea how much I...
Coaching Basics: Routines
“I can’t take it anymore!” When conversations start like this, I perk up and listen closely. It’s critical to be an active listener as the teacher elaborates. The listening becomes...
Coaching Logs and Daily Reflective Routines
As a classroom teacher, I was intentional—one could even say obsessive—about reflecting on the effectiveness of my work. Almost nightly, I would spread a pile of work across my living...
Cultivating Natural Mentors
When I was hired as a junior high English teacher, my principal was just one year from retirement and had the proverbial “one foot out the door.” He spent his...
Technology Is Not a Reward
Do you remember the first time you actually got on the internet? That very first time you connected to the web? Maybe you were in high school or college; maybe...
NaNoWriMo with Students
For the past three years my writing workshop has been transformed into a flurry of writing activity every November. My students and I join people around the globe in a...
Figuring Out Social Media Together
My teenage daughter Stephanie sits across the table, and the phone sits in neutral territory between us as we enter another discussion about digital responsibility . . . or do-the-right-thing-with-your-tech....
Honesty, Ignorance, and Building Relationships
Being a leader of literacy instruction can feel like a daunting job. There are so many excellent instructional practices being used by teachers that it seems impossible to know everything...
Coaching Relationships: Move Closer
When I was in graduate school working on my degree in educational leadership, I had a professor admonish us to “Move closest to the person you feel the least closest...
Unstable Labels: Stop the Race to Z
One evening at a family dinner at the end of the school year, Kim sat next to her sister-in-law, who nodded toward her five-year-old son sitting across from her at...
Little Levels, Big Thinking
I’m teaching first grade after a year in third grade. It was such a good learning year for me. I realized that lots of books that work in first grade...
Reading, Engagement, and Kidwatching
I looked up from my reading conference with Jordan to see that David was building a mighty impressive book fort, Mateo and Tucker were exchanging Lego figures behind books, Jasmine...
Takeout Book Club
Book clubs are a rewarding opportunity for educators to continue growing in their profession while reading the latest in professional resources and collaborating with colleagues. But with the hustle and...
Twitter Book Chats
Cultivating a culture of learning and collaboration among teachers and support staff is a responsibility of all coaches. But everyone is dealing with overstuffed schedules, and finding the ability to...
Reorganizing Primary Information Texts
Each summer, I think about all the things I want to change in my classroom for the upcoming year. I think about replenishing supplies like chart paper and colored paper,...
