Twelve Days of Social Networking
In the spirit of holiday fun, I’ve rewritten a classic song from the 1700s with a twenty-first century twist. This is dedicated to educators, leaders and innovators engaged in professional learning networks (PLN).
Risk-Taking is Essential for Professional Learning
Risk-taking is the make-or-break ingredient of effective professional learning. Without it, we are just going through the motions of “doing professional learning.” How do we bridge this gap between gathering ideas and transforming how we teach?
7 Ways to Build Trust for Peer Observation
“There is no more powerful way of improving on the job than by observing others and having others observe us.” —Roland Barth (2006) The challenge is opening doors. Use these seven strategies for building trust and buy-in to begin deep professional learning.
Observe Together to Deepen Professional Learning
Collaboration can be shallow or deep, a way to maintain business as usual, or a driver for collective change. Make professional learning powerful by moving from talk to action. It begins by opening doors.
Open Doors to Deep Professional Learning
For the past several years I have been collaborating with educators across diverse districts to test and refine Observation Inquiry (OI), a powerful approach to leading teacher learning in classrooms together. I’ve been researching, filming, editing, and writing to create a concrete how-to guide to share this work with you.
Schools Must Foster Risk-Taking
It’s easy to forget the dynamic of risk-taking in the world of K-12 education, where success is mapped in a staircase of standards and academic achievement is key to opening doors. This video poem and reflective blog dare educators to stretch the boundaries of what is possible, and inspire students to do the same.
A Bilingual Poem for #WriteMyCommunity
When I was eight, I remember staring out the car window and thinking about disconnect between my world and the world of my Spanish-speaking neighbors who lived only a freeway exit away. No one in my family spoke Spanish, but I wanted to. In California, Spanish is the song of street signs and city names. It’s the voice of a history I wanted to hear, and neighbors I wanted to understand.
As an adult, I wrote this poem in my second language, Spanish, to reach out in a new way. An English translation follows.
Academic language is the set of words, grammar, and organizational strategies used to describe complex ideas, higher-order thinking processes, and abstract concepts.
How do we empower diverse learners with the academic language essential for school success? Let’s discuss this important topic on Monday, August 18th at 6pm EST during #thetileonechat on Twitter. Thank you, Tiawana Giles (@TiawanaG) for this opportunity to be a guest moderator this week for your great Twitter chat! For readers who like to have time to think about questions early, I’m posting each question now in this blog. As a chat participant, I…
More important than any solution is our ability to understand the problem we are trying to solve, and our flexibility to adapt and change to solve it.
How Do You Find Your Edge?
Learning begins at the edge of what we don’t know. How do you find your edge, continuously, and empower others to do the same?
