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3 Tips for Working with an Assistant
Listen In November, we said in this blog post that support staff (which also go by the titles paraprofessionals, para-educators, or teaching assistants, to name a few - and we’ll use them interchangeably) comprise one of the most underutilized resources in education. One of the main reasons we’ve found this...
The Introvert's Survival Guide for Working in Education
Listen Read Education is a tough field for introverts, and not necessarily for the reasons people might assume. The “public speaking” aspect, for example, is not that big of a deal for many people in a classroom setting. In fact, public speaking in general may be easier for introverts because...
Whose ARD Is This, Anyway?
Listen Read 10 Tips for Making Sure the Secondary Student Is the Focus of the ARD Imagine being an adolescent who struggles in school, walking into a stuffy room and sitting at a table with 8 adults while they all talk about you as though you weren’t even present. This...
10 Ways to Boost Morale for Teachers and School Staff
Listen As the school year begins, so does the stress and expectations put upon teachers. We go from pretty much not having a care in the world during the summer to deadlines, paperwork, planning, assessments…you name it, we have to do it. All these duties can become overwhelming quickly and...
Best Methods of Communicating with Parents
Listen Going off to school each year can be hard on some parents. They have spent all their time at home; safe and nurtured. Parents can be unsure of what will happen once they are off to school. Keeping them reassured, educated and involved is the best way to have...
Mindfulness in the Classroom
Listen The demands put upon students these days, from kindergarten through high school, have become overwhelming. Kindergartners, 5 and 6 year olds, are expected to read and write by the end of the school year. Upper elementary age students need to be able to use a computer and take multiple,...
PBIS - How Effective Is It?
Listen PBIS stands for "Positive Behavioral Interactions and Supports." The overarching goal of PBIS as a classroom strategy is to create safer, more positive learning environments for students of all ages and levels. Most importantly, perhaps, PBIS adds "behavior" as a classroom topic like any other. Here, everyone is first...
Bureaucracy in the School System
Listen We like to think of education as the one U.S. institution that adamantly supports individualism and free speech. In many ways our schools, public and private, do just that. Administrators and teachers encourage free expression and a personal approach to academic development. State and federal education policies take proactive...
Most Valuable Professional Development For Principals
Listen Gone are the days when principals were sole decision makers who spent the bulk of their workdays behind closed doors. Governing schools while keeping interaction with teachers, students and parents to a limit is no longer the model for a principal’s success. In today’s demanding educational environments, principals need...
Should Students Adapt To The School or the School to the Student?
Listen Failure to adapt is often a failure to survive. In the school system, though, the question is often not one of whether adaptation should happen, but rather who should adapt. Being able to answer this question can play a huge role in how effective a school administration will be. ...
If Teachers Get Raises, Where Should The Money Come From?
Listen There is a major push across the U.S. to raise the salaries of educators as the majority of the public has consistently stated so in various polls. Despite the fact the public is concerned about the living standards of teachers and the 40 states suffering through severe teacher shortages,...
TFD Talks Education #5 - Teacher Grant Pools With Bryce Dunford
Listen Watch Tyler talks with Bryce Dunford, School Board President in Jordan, UT, about the Board's decision to use a Grant Pool to increase teacher pay.