Wow! What a week!  I feel like I can finally start to catch my breath – in the last 5 school days we’ve hosted 4 visits.  Folks in all sorts of job roles in our district are visiting and each visit was different.  We’ve had so many great questions and conversations from these visits that… Read More Visits Galore

There’s nothing better than an exciting, energizing professional learning experience (okay, maybe happy hour…) and nothing can leave you wishing you were grading essays like a bad one. Often, participants find themselves wondering ‘who planned this?’ and ‘how is this useful to anyone’ while suffering through hours of professional development. If you’re planning a learning opportunity… Read More Pro Tips: Level Up On Your PD

When teachers have the opportunity to learn from their colleagues, the feedback is overwhelmingly positive. We have been hosting visits since mid-fall for other schools to come in and see our classrooms, talk with our teachers, ask questions and hear what we have done to change teaching and learning.  This week we had the first… Read More #BetterTogether

One of the ongoing struggles we continue to try to solve revolves around professional learning.  In our district, like many, for years typical PD (professional development) is something that is done to teachers.  Teachers have had very little say in what they learn, when they learn it and how they learn.  Most of the PD… Read More Who owns the learning?

Two weeks ago I was at EduCon 2.9 in Philadelphia.  One of the main takeaways was the power of student perspective.  I’ve started to reflect about how we bring in this critical perspective and asking myself some questions. Do we really listen to our students’ perspective? How do we ask for more input from them?… Read More Student Voice

I’ve been thinking about this topic a lot.  The last couple of weeks have been really hard.  I’m tired (it’s that time of the year, end of 2nd quarter, dark & short days of winter) and feeling over committed.  The deadlines and schedules mean the to-do lists are never ending.  I’ve been teetering on the… Read More Taking Care of Ourselves

This weekend I spent Friday, Saturday and Sunday in Philadelphia with a teacher from my school, @TheScottHazen and 500 other educators at EduCon 2.9.  This was a great conference, connecting those interested in improving education for all of our students and engaging us in conversations around deep topics. I am so jazzed up by the… Read More EduCon Reflection