I wrote about vulnerability in an earlier blog  and was reviewing my thinking this week as I prepared to work with principal and instructional coach partners in planning for student achievement and teacher success at their schools. One of the issues I knew I wanted to explore in our conversations was, “How do principal and […]

Last year I shared about the work that I was doing with Hisar School in Istanbul, Turkey.  At that time the leadership team was examining critical student behaviors that they felt were important to making desired increases in student achievement. Having selected the behaviors, they designed a learning walk instrument around these six areas: Learning Objective… […]

Last week I had the opportunity to attend the orientation for new teachers at North East Independent School District in San Antonio, Texas.  After the initial introductions and welcomes, the new teachers were enlightened by the words of Amy Ferguson. Amy is a teacher and Instructional Dean of Mathematics at Winston Churchill High School in […]

While reading an Education Week Blog by Jill Berkowicz and Ann Myers, The Importance of Challenging Our Comfort Zone   (August 6),  I was reminded of the need for school leaders, instructional coaches and teachers to create environments where staffs and students are comfortable with discomfort. Berkowicz and Meyers explore the need for school leaders to be […]

Recently I was conversing with several educators from the same district’s central office team. They shared with me that last spring a decision was made to send all central office staff into the schools six weeks before the state testing date to work with students around common reading skill deficiencies. Teachers identified the students with […]

I just wrapped up a two day return to Joplin, Missouri with a chance to work with all of their building administrators in joint sessions with their instructional coaches. We examined longer term and “this next year” school improvement plans. We identified the student behaviors needed to reach critical achievement goals and the teacher behaviors […]