I am in my twentieth year of teaching. I know I am doing what I was created to do. I know I am teaching where I need to be teaching. But after two decades of teaching, the ‘B’ word has begun to haunt me: I am burning out. My dad used to always say if […]
Posted inFeatured, Opinion
15 Things My Newborn Son Taught Me About Education
On November 1st at 11:05p, Jonah, my newborn son, entered the world, joining my wife and me. While I’ve taught nearly 1,500 students in my 10 years of education, I hadn’t learned as much from one until I had after staying home with my new found family. Here are a dozen things he’s taught my wife and me that […]
Posted inEducational Apps, High School, Instruction & Curriculum, Literacy, Series, Technology
Adventures in Going Paperless: Step Two, Navigating Digital Feedback
After realizing my endless stacks of grading were threatening to swallow my sanity, I took the leap into embracing technology. However, what I found initially was that while stacks were fewer and my desk cleaner, my anxiety levels were not lower. In my quest for a new organizational system, I moved to using Turnitin.com for […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
Using Learning Theories as a Framework for Teaching
According to Dr. Heidi Hayes Jacobs, “curriculum making is choice making” and a person who designs curriculum well not only has a variety of styles, but responds well to the environment, stays up-to-date on research, and makes choices based on good information (Laureate Education, 2010.). As the field of education changes so frequently with regards […]
Posted inCurrent Events in Education, From the Front Lines, Uncategorized
5 Ways to Flip the Parent-Teacher Conference Script
With a total of five hours to meet 20-something families, elementary school teachers in New York City have between 10 and 15 minutes for each conference. That doesn’t leave a lot of time to cover a child’s academic progress, social-emotional progress, areas for growth in these areas, and provide suggestions for supporting learning at home. […]
Posted inElementary School, Instruction & Curriculum, Literacy
Guided Reading: Different Kids, Different Text
Today we have a plethora of resources available to use in our classrooms. This allows students to get a meaningful text at their level. Matching text to students allows them to read more independently, practice note-taking skills and learn about classroom standards or content in a meaningful way. Each student in our classroom comes to us […]
Posted inCurrent Events in Education, Featured, Opinion, Principals' Corner, School Improvement, Uncategorized
Zero Tolerance For Zero Tolerance
As Russell J. Skiba points out in his research on zero-tolerance policies, it’s quite difficult to find the “moment” when our schools implemented zero-tolerance policies in our school, but we can trace the impact of them to the 1994 Free Schools Act as a time when districts were quick to suspend students for fear of […]
Posted inFeatured, Instructional Strategies
Recycling Classroom Supplies
My colleagues, and family cringe when they empty Pringles cans, toilet paper rolls and bottles of vinegar. They know I will swarm into the trash like a group of hornets snatching the prized possessions to ‘save for a project’. I am a huge hoarder. I save every single item that I ‘might’ need and I […]