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.
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?
Questions are bigger than answers. One good question can give rise to several layers of answers, can inspire decades-long searches for solutions, can generate whole new fields of inquiry, and can prompt changes in entrenched thinking. Answers, on the other hand, often end the process.
Stuart Firestein’s book Ignorance: How It Drives Science offers a valuable perspective to educators. Through fascinating examples of scientific experiments and discoveries, he makes a powerful case for the central role uncertainty plays in driving science. “Want to be on the cutting edge?” he writes, “Well, it’s all, or mostly, ignorance out there. Forget the answers. Work on the questions.” Great scientific discoveries often emerge from experiments that “fail.” While…
Welcome!
Welcome teachers, administrators, and everyone invested in the future of public education.
This blog is about learning: student learning, teacher learning, and my own learning as a language and literacy consultant leading change in K-8 schools.
5 Characteristics of Courageous Teacher Learners
From my first year as a teacher, where I struggled tremendously, to now where I lead professional learning across our nations’ schools, I find a consistent theme: teachers want to learn.
It’s not apparent in every staff room, or even publicly in the culture of many districts and schools. Yet when leaders connect to the core of why people teach, and engage them in meaningful inquiry around questions that matter, teachers fire up about learning.
