Student discipline is high on the job description of most assistant principals. After three years as an AP, here’s what DeAnna Miller has learned about this essential aspect of working with kids: (1) use it as a teachable moment, (2) make it fair, and (3) love them anyway.
Pandemic teaching has led grades 5/6 math teacher Mona Iehl to adapt proven practices from her regular classroom for her virtual teaching. Using the Nearpod app, she prioritizes community building and discussion while simplifying lesson designs. Her video shows her strategies in action!
Middle schoolers share what they think teachers need to know about hybrid learning, with tips for improving learning in the mix of in-person and online classes. It’s the experiences at home – being heard, having time to use tech properly – that garner the most criticism.
For Ron Williamson and Barbara Blackburn the most important work principals can do is practice instructional leadership. Principals who invest time and attention on improving teaching can significantly impact student learning. See their 7 keys to constructive feedback.
Podcasts / Reading for the 21st Century
by Alex Valencic · Published 03/08/2021 · Last modified 03/09/2021
Professional books play an important role in every savvy educator’s growth and development. Podcasts can serve the same purpose, writes instructional leader Alex Valencic. Podcasts not only stimulate our thinking, they lead us to new authors and help us expand our PLNs.
Online journaling offers students a place to document feelings, thoughts, and reactions to a variety of texts while they make personal, social and academic connections with their teacher. Rose and Walsh offer a process that can strengthen conferencing now and after Covid.
Similar to reading, listening to what we hear during an interview requires comprehension and the active construction of meaning. Elizabeth Hagan, Lisa Friesen and Sunday Cummins share action research on ways to prepare students to conduct interviews they’ll enjoy and learn from.
Teacher, author and adolescent literacy consultant Cris Tovani guides us through her 6Ts (Topic, Target, Task, Text, Time, and Tending) as she tells the story of her first virtual literacy workshop – with 7th graders who are studying the Sahara Desert. Engagement? CYA!
In Metacognition: The Neglected Skill Set, Robin Fogarty and Brian Pete offer 30 grab-and-go strategies to help students create a new habit of mind, writes middle school director Jeny Randall. Along with tools for teaching, they invite us to hone our own metacognitive skills.
When we take the time to research and develop leadership styles that are true to our beliefs and values, while at the same time encouraging others to develop themselves and their own leadership styles, we become ethical and transformational leaders, writes AP DeAnna Miller.
