I had to share this story. Last week I had the opportunity to take a group of students from our High School to the Franklin Institute. It was the first “road trip” for our Student Innovation Lab. About 20 students and five teachers/leaders made the trip where we learned about how the brain works, and […]
As teachers, our life is busy. It’s not only the kind of busy when you run from one activity to the next activity. It’s the kind of busy where you can’t sleep because your mind is racing. Whether you are preparing lesson plans for thirty 3rd graders every day, or developing assessments for three different […]
Daniel Coyle, the author of The Talent Code, recently looked at a study on feedback from teachers. This study showed that one simple phrase could boost student effort by 40%. I was shocked when I read this, but in the back of my mind I was already guessing what the phrase would be…and I was right on the […]
“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.” — J.R.R. Tolkien I hated middle school. Actually, I enjoyed hanging out with my friends, the social awkwardness, the beginning of playing team sports […]
Sir Ken Robinson, author of The Element, has famously said: “Whether or not you discover your talents and passions is partly a matter of opportunity. If you’ve never been sailing, or picked up an instrument, or tried to teach or to write fiction, how would you know if you had a talent for these things?” […]
The Global Day of Design just wrapped up on May 2nd. If you want to see what happens when 80,000+ students embrace design thinking, check out the Twitter stream and #GDD17 hashtag! Students from six different continents (over 20 countries) participated and rocked this event in the second year in existence. Teachers and entire schools […]
Yesterday I came across a story about Tracy Musser, a bus driver in Penn Manor school district. I couldn’t help but smile as I read about Tracy (who never liked to read in school, but now is a big reader) transforming her bus into a mobile library for students to check out books based on […]
After writing my post on “100 books every teacher should read” I received a number of emails about finding the time to read all of those books (without going broke or insane!). There is something to be said for enjoying books (I am still an English teacher at heart), but it can also be easy […]
A few years ago a colleague of mine shared a slide deck with me that completely transformed my perspective on leadership and building culture. I was new to a leadership position and much like a friend might give you a book, this friend shared the slide deck knowing that I had different views on leadership, […]
1. Learning starts with attention. It’s almost impossible to learn if you aren’t paying attention. And whatever you are giving attention has the ability to turn into learning. 2. Attention happens for two reasons: Necessity and interest. Nature uses necessity to drive quick learning feedback loops. When we try to manufacture necessity (think: you must […]