B.Y.O.T Bring Your Own Thoughts
The latest on all student-centered models, leadership development, strategic planning, teacher retention, and all things innovation in K-12 education. We answer questions before you think to ask them.
Personalized Learning | Professional Development
To meet the needs of an ever-changing tomorrow, school districts must continue to grow and evolve. At its most desired state, a classroom is a laboratory of innovation and its teacher, a "mad" scientist - working everyday to make connections between students and the content. Unfortunately, the chaotic uncertainty of the last two years have left educators fighting to survive, leaving little time for experimentation. This reality leads us to an important question: how can we measure growth and innovation during these challenging times?
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Instructional Coaching | Personalized Learning | Professional Development
To many in the gardening and plant world, bonsais are among the most impressive trees. Bonsai is seen as a blend of gardening and art – a way to create living sculptures. A gardener might spend decades pruning the tree, little by little, year over year, so that it grows to the gardener’s exact vision. For instance, a Coast Redwood tree that, in the wild might grow to 100’-200’, may only grow to 1’ under the curated, decades-long care of the gardener. Recently I was listening to a podcast, where Julie Lythcott-Haims – author of best selling books on helping young people become healthy and happy adults, and former Dean of Freshmen and Undergraduate Advising at Stanford University – applied the concept of growing bonsai trees to the way parents raise their children. She shared:
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Instructional Coaching | Professional Development
With an influx of ESSER funds, many districts are choosing to invest in instructional coach positions. That’s not just a recent trend. From 2000 to 2015, the number of coaches in school districts doubled. It makes sense - multiple research studies point to strong evidence for increased quality of instruction and improvements in student achievement as a result of instructional coaching. In fact, a meta-analysis of 60 randomized controlled trials that looked at students’ standardized tests scores and teacher instructional practices found that coaching had a greater impact than most school-based interventions (e.g., pre-service training, student incentives, merit-based pay, generic professional development, data-driven instruction, and extended learning time).
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Education Elements | Professional Development
There’s a line from You’ve Got Mail (yes, I’ve seen it hundreds of times) where Tom Hanks says, “Don’t you just love New York in the Fall? It makes me want to buy school supplies. I would send you a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address.” If you’re an educator, September makes you think of new backpacks, colorful pens, clean lunch boxes. If you’re an instructional coach, principal, or most central office staff members, July and August probably make you think of Back to School Professional Development and New Teacher Training. A little less sparkly than Lisa Frank, but alas, here we are.
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District Leadership | Professional Development | School Leadership | Teacher Retention
The abrupt shift to distance learning directly challenged the knowledge, mindsets, and skills of our teacher workforce this Spring. Formerly ‘nice-to-have’ skills in digital integration became ‘must-haves,’ traditional classroom management and instructional design methods no longer applied, and everyone was required to embrace a high level of comfort with ambiguity as guidelines and expectations shifted on a weekly basis. And as a new school year approaches and the global pandemic remains, educators are bracing for these abrupt and temporary changes to take root.
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Professional Development | Virtual Learning
Research matters! When developing your Continuity of Learning (CoL) plans there are many things that feel logical and natural. In looking at historical data from recent studies surrounding remote/virtual learning, there are several elements that, at face value, seem both natural and logical, but in reality, may not be in your students’ best interest.
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