Blog
A Book Review: PLC+ Better Decisions and Greater Impact by Design
I became a champion of the PLC process fifteen years ago, when I started working in a school that opened as a professional learning community. What left me so jazzed about the PLC process was . . . Read more
Pandemic Proved Importance of PLCs
At the start of the pandemic, our teachers struggled to know what to teach, how to teach, and most importantly, how to ensure high levels of learning for their students in a remote format, despite . . . Read more
Pandemic Provides New Lens for Clear Mission
Over the past 17 years, I have had the distinct pleasure of working with a wide variety of schools. Some of them were public, others private or charter schools. Some were comprised of students from . . . Read more
Why a Strategic Implementation Guide is a Must for a PLC
When I first was introduced to the concept of professional learning communities, it just clicked. This is how we should lead our campuses. Read more
Better Together
“A small team, committed to a cause bigger than themselves, can achieve absolutely anything” (Sinek, 2020). Over the last year, with all of the turmoil and change in the world, one thing has remained constant: our unwavering dedication to student growth and achievement. Within that statement, the most important word is “our.” Read more
From Theory to Practice: A Jigsaw Approach to an Elementary Master Schedule
Creating a highly collaborative school culture and high performing teams is multifaceted and can take many years to establish. Creating and maintaining a system of excellence is a hard job! Schools do not become great overnight and they certainly do not remain great without constant evaluation of systems and practices. The fundamental purpose of a school is learning, not teaching. Read more
Mrs. Gorman Changed My Life
Not in an awe-inspiring, mind-blowing, hoping-Disney-buys-the-movie-rights type of way. But she was a life-changing teacher nonetheless. She was my English teacher in 1985, during my 7th-grade year at Richardson North Jr. High School in Texas. Read more
Assessing the Remote Learner
Shifting to remote learning over a weekend and then starting the fall semester remotely has been a challenge for many teachers. Read more
Pit Bulls and Fallen Trees: A Message to Principals
It’s the Monday after Thanksgiving break. As a busy elementary school principal, I spent the previous four days resting, relaxing, and gearing up for the mad dash to winter break. I renewed . . . Read more
Collaboratively Designing and Delivering Lessons: The Instructional Diamond
Since the work of Madeline Hunter, a lot has changed in education. We now have ample resources and robust technologies that can provide engaging, vivid experiences for students. More important, we have much more research about teaching and learning than we ever have previously. We know more about how students learn. Even with all these changes, the framework for building lesson plans and delivering instruction has not evolved. Read more
Are you a tutor or teacher?
In one of the schools where I work, the principal once commented that it makes a difference if you believe yourself to be a tutor or a teacher. We discussed it further, and she shared her belief that living as a PLC helped pave the way for many of her teachers to make the shift. Read more
No Need for a Fifth Question: How A Collaborative Team Improves Instruction In A PLC
Collaborative teams in a PLC are asked to engage in weekly job-embedded professional development and build shared knowledge in the areas of curriculum, assessment, data analysis, intervention, and . . . Read more
So, what’s changed?
21st Century Skills require a balance of content and process. How have teaching and learning shifted to meet these demands?
James Melsa (2007) says it best, “We are currently preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist using technologies that haven’t yet been invented in order to solve problems we don’t even know we have.” We can no longer prepare students for our past, we must prepare them for their future. But what does this mean and where should we start? Read more
Legendary Lessons I Wish I’d Known My First Year of Teaching
I recently spent time with my parents for our weekly lunch date. Amid our customary conversations about the state of our nation’s political system and where the best senior citizen lunch discounts can be found, we began to muse about life lessons that I had learned during my formative years. After much time had passed, these lessons (and the resulting consequences) are now looked back upon with some measure of fondness. But during the time they occurred, these lessons and consequences evoked the same emotional reaction as losing my favorite George Brett baseball card. Read more