Category Archives: Teachers

TEDx Lansing 2012

Last week I did something I’ve wanted to do for a long, long time.  After posting links to a few different TED talks here on my blog, I took part of a day to attend the Lansing TED conference.  TED … Continue reading

Posted in Leadership, School Reform, Teachers, Technology | 4 Comments

Professional Learning Conception #6 – Lesson Study

In a former life, I was a quality manager where my job was to study things like kaizen, a Japanese methodology of “gradual continuous improvement”.  In my current life, a form of kaizen, also from Japanese culture is the structure … Continue reading

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Professional Learning Conception #5 – Student Work Review

Picking up from the last Professional Learning Conception (#4 – Data Analysis), it seems that prerequisite to having data worth analyzing, there is student work that results in the data.  Before “data-driven” became the overused cliché that it has in … Continue reading

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Pirates and Cowboys

Something bold, ironic, and beautiful is happening in our schools.  National teacher satisfaction surveys are showing decreasing satisfaction with the career (not the work, mind you, the job).  We could have predicted this just by listening to teachers’ desires and … Continue reading

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Professional Learning Conception #4 – Data Analysis

One of my main concerns for teaching is the focus of student data that is increasingly being used to evaluate the quality of a teacher.  I agree whole-heartedly that student performance information should inform how a teacher measures progress towards … Continue reading

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Cut the Pendulum Strings and Jump Into The River

I’m looking for a new metaphor for educators.  I’m tired of hearing, and using, the overly cliché, “…the pendulum is swinging back again”.  Poet Audre Lorde said, “There are no new ideas.  There are just new ways of making them … Continue reading

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Professional Learning Conception#3 – Lit Review

So often I read professional articles or journals that really inspire and speak to me and my classroom needs.  A well-written, divinely-timed article can literally change your practice, just by growing your thinking about instruction, or even philosophy of teaching.  … Continue reading

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Childlike

Once I could drive, I started taking my grandmother out for lunch every few weeks.  During one of those visits, we spoke of the difference of childlike and childish, agreeing we both wanted to maintain the former into our adult … Continue reading

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Professional Learning Conception #2 – Peer Observation

One of the common things I’ve heard from teachers for years is that we want to “watch someone else do it”.  This concept led me to a team-teaching model in my classroom so that I could have the daily experience … Continue reading

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Professional Learning Conception #1 – Managing Curriculum

For clarity, I am broadly defining curriculum as the standards AND materials used for instruction.  If you teach a curricular program in which lesson plans are provided, scripted, or otherwise laid out, there is still plenty of room for teachers … Continue reading

Posted in Coaching, Professional Learning Conceptions, Teachers | 4 Comments