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Take the LEAP Creating A Classroom Of Courageous and Empowered Learners By: Laura McDonell
Listen Having courage means doing something when the answer of how it will turn out is unknown. It is Not Always Easy to Be Courageous Courage is not something that comes naturally to everyone. And even when it is a familiar value, it is not always easy to practice courage...
The Guts to be Not Good by: Laura McDonell
Listen How Starting Before your Ready is the Key to Success Three years ago, my middle son Luke decided that he wanted to play hockey. He taught himself how to skate on our pond and was determined to try a new sport. Luke decided he was willing to start at...
Space for Not Yet - by Laura McDonnell
Listen A delay is not a denial. (Vernon Wright) Embrace the Not Yet Space One of the most challenging things is not being where we want to be. It is difficult to realize that there is space between where we are and where we want to go. I choose to...
The Comparison Trap by Laura McDonell
Listen It doesn’t happen all at once. But you notice it all at once. Little by little, changes take place. One minute you are ecstatic about your students’ work, and cannot believe the creativity and risks you have taken over the past year. And then, after only a few weeks...
What does it Mean to Seek The Next Level? by Laura McDonell
Listen How Observation and Choosing the Struggle Allow us to Become Fearless Identifying the Next Level What does the next level look like? Our family loves to play Pacman. My sons and my husband are very good at playing the game, so their next levels look quite different from mine....
Stepping Into my Students’ Shoes by Laura McDonell
How Running 100 miles in Six Days makes me a Better Teacher Step into my shoes and walk the life I am living, and if you get as far as I am, maybe you will see how strong I am. (Anonymous) As a teacher, I often think about how to...
Change the Behavior, Change the Class (Part Three) by Hollie Hamaker
Listen When I think of the word "mentorship," I think of some ideal mentors. Professor Dumbledore and Gandalf are some of the first mentors that come to my mind. However, I should start putting my fellow teachers on that list. In the final installment of "Change the Behavior, Change the...
The Best Choices are Right in Front of You by Laura McDonell
Listen Rearrange the ¨Furniture¨ and Discover a New Perspective Growing up, one of my favorite things to do was to rearrange my bedroom. I loved the opportunity to have my bed facing a new direction, a chance to slide the dresser into a new location and enjoy seeing things from...
The Stay-at-Home Gratitude Scavenger Hunt by Laura McDonell
Listen Re-Discovering the Blessings that Surround Us “No duty is more urgent than giving thanks.” (James Allen) Being grateful is not automatic. Practicing gratitude is one of the quickest ways to lift your spirits and lift the spirits of people around you. How do People Respond? When asked what they...
Is It Worth The Time? Finding a way to Stretch the Hours in a School Year by Laura McDonell
Listen Stretching the Dollar If anyone can stretch a dollar, it is my Mom. A stay at home Mom who put her career on hold to raise four children, my Mom had to find a way to stretch one income. She was a master coupon clipper, sales shopper, and had...
Dealing with New Technology by Hollie Hamaker
Listen For many teachers, virtual teaching is a four-letter word. The idea of having to use technology to teach can fill some with dread. Some teachers have even quit or retired, so they do not have to deal with technology's ever-changing world. It seems that virtual teaching might not...
A New Way To Improve: What it Looks Like to Get 1% Better Each Day By Laura McDonell
Listen Last weekend I was inspired by a story. Chris Nikic became the first person with down syndrome to complete an Ironman triathlon (2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike ride, and 26.2-mile run completed in under 17 hours). Completing an Ironman Triathlon requires grit, determination, perseverance and stamina that most people only...
Reformation: Adjusting Responsibilities of Learning and Control
Listen In the past, both the responsibility for learning and classroom control rested squarely on the shoulders of the teacher. If your students were loud and misbehaving, or if they failed a standardized test, you were not only held responsible for it in a figurative sense. Instead, you could lose...
Reformation: Identifying Sources of Inspiration
Listen One of the purposes of this series of articles was to talk about schools, leaders, administrators, philosophers of education, technologists, architects, and teachers who were visibly succeeding in education and making an impact. But our eleven schools are notably only a small sampling. Since beginning this series, we’ve heard...
Elementary Focus: Dolls for SEL and Social Studies
Listen There are few adults who spend any time with kids who haven’t heard of the “Toy Story” franchise. In one of the movies, the toys gather around a new playmate, Forky, created by the child who is the center of their world.The child in the movie makes this “doll”...
Education Podcasts, Part 2: What We Have Learned from Them
Listen We wanted to share some of what we have learned recently from the education podcasts we have been listening to. Principal Center Radio Douglas Fisher - The Distance Learning Playbook (Jul 31) Douglas Fisher’s has some great, practical tips on distance learning! He suggests that teachers should integrate synchronous...
The New Hope of New London
Listen 2020… right?!? What a bizarre year. We thought now would be a good moment to ponder some amazing schools, districts, and communities that have lived through their share of trying times and come out on the other side in a way that can provide some inspiration for us as...
Teacher Reflections After Returning to School
Listen For many teachers, administrators, and school employees around the world, August has meant returning to campus for the first time in 4 or 5 months. Some are teaching to cameras in empty classrooms while others are trying to figure out how to teach with masks covering the expressions of...
How to Create, Record, & Close a Lesson in Google Meets
Listen With so many schools going either 100% virtual or offering some sort of hybrid option, teachers are having to become tech gurus overnight and learn to rely on programs that had previously been just something that “those young teachers were using” or things to tinker with to check the...
The Next Pandemic - Mental Illness
Listen The pandemic of COVID-19 leaves behind more than physical health changes for the general population in its wake. Many doctors, psychiatrists, and health advisers (including the CDC and WHO) are telling the medical community and the public to brace themselves for the next big pandemic - mental illness. Many...
Making Legal Change
Listen This is the final article in our series for educators who want to advocate for changes in their community, state, and national government in regard to education. This article gives tips on how to affect changes to the law - either by introducing something new or by amending laws...
Approaching the Board
Listen In our last few articles, we’ve discussed the reasons and ways you can (and should) advocate for change within the school system. In this article, we want to specifically talk about working with your district’s school board in creating and advocating change. Let’s begin by talking about who the...
Presenting Ideas for Change Mindfully and Effectively
Listen It is always wise to know your audience, but this rings particularly true when you are addressing an administrator who is in a supervisory role to you. It’s safe to say that every campus has its clicks. Within those groups, there are teachers who have a closer personal relationship...
What Do Schools Need to Do to Prepare for the Fall? Part 2
Listen In our previous article in this series, we addressed the fact that schools need to prepare plans A, B, & C as well as a hybrid of the three and the fact that teachers will need continued support. Consider Accessibility for Both Students and Teachers The last three months...
What Do Schools Need to Do to Prepare for the Fall? Part 1
Listen We only have three months to get ready for whatever school is going to look like in the fall. With so many unknowns, we are all having to plan for several different scenarios. One of the big lessons learned from the experiences this spring is that we have to...
The Questions of Remote Kindergarten
Listen Among the most vocal against remote learning have been the early childhood teachers - and with good reason. It’s very difficult to reconcile what we know about early childhood, young children, and learning outside the walls of the classroom with lessons based online, meeting in a chatroom for lessons,...
Elementary Remote Blended Learning
Listen This is the third article in this series, so if you haven’t read the other two about what blended learning is and what it looks like in the classroom, you may want to scan that before continuing. Blended learning in the classroom and blended learning remotely can look very...
Preparing Students to Re-Enter Society
Listen Recently, one of our writers was sharing a personal experience they’d had right after college. The writer spent the summer in a third-world country teaching reading, and upon returning to the United States, had a severely overwhelming few weeks getting used to being back. For example, grocery shopping was...
Teachers’ Concerns About Returning to School
Listen In a previous post we explored how other countries are coping with reopening schools, but teachers around the globe have so many practical questions and concerns regarding the implications of reopening when there are still so many unknowns about this virus. Many teachers feel left out as the decisions...
Using Epic! for Remote Elementary Reading
Listen Many of us already use Epic! with our students, but we went behind the scenes to see if there were any new or interesting parts of the site that aren’t commonly known amongst educators. If you’ve used it, you probably already know all the most exciting aspects, like the...
The Emotional Toll of Social Distancing
Listen Let us start by saying that we acknowledge that the price we are paying for social distancing is, in our opinion, worth it. Lives are the most important and irreplaceable commodity. That’s not the issue we are dealing with in this article. With that being said, we must acknowledge...
How Other Countries Are Coping with Restarting School
Listen Students and educators alike have been terribly disappointed by the fact that school won’t be resuming face-to-face classes for this school year. Although there are many disadvantages to those involved in remote learning, there are some things that can be taken into consideration as advantages. One great advantage is...
Literacy in High School, Part 2: Student Choice
Listen In our previous post, we look at how Reading Workshop can be used in the secondary classroom, but getting students to read depends a lot on what they read. Student Choice Richard Allington and Rachel Gabriel stated in their 2012 article in Educational Leadership, “Every Child, Every Day” that...
Literacy in High School, Part 1: Reading Workshop
Listen Getting teenagers to want to read can seem like an impossible task. Heck, getting teenagers to not turn to active revolt, bearing protest signs (or at least passive and indifferent expressions) upon the mere mention of reading a book could be considered a victory worth running out of your...
Creating Emotional Closure During Quarantine
Listen In the U.S., most states have already called it: school will be only online and distance ed for the rest of this school year. For many students, this is difficult.Actually, if we’re being accurate and transparent, it’s traumatizing. It is necessary, it is important, but there is a lot...
Teacher Appreciation Ideas During Remote Learning
Listen Principals love treating their teachers during Teacher Appreciation Week! Many have been preparing all year: catered lunches, dessert bars, coffee carts traveling the hallway, and/or different gifts delivered to classrooms each day. Empty school buildings mean a change of plans. With schools closed across the country and around the...
Whose Teleconference ARD Is This, Anyway?
Listen In addition to learning how to teach remotely, you have likely had to attend at least one virtual meeting of some sort of web conference platform. These meetings can be awkward enough when it is a small PLC of 5-10 people. Campus faculty meetings of 100+ can get quite...
Time Management for Online Classes
Listen It’s difficult to manage new technology while you’re also trying to manage your class and teach content. In order to make it easier, create an outline template that you can follow to stay on track. 45-Minute Lesson Example Greet and Hello, -00:10 to 00:00 If it’s possible, open the...
Remote Teaching Idea #5: Professional Development with Movies
Listen “Cal-COO-lus? What is Cal-COO-lus?” I’m pretty sure that I watched Stand and Deliver every year in at least one class throughout high school and possibly even junior high. By the time I became a teacher, it was Freedom Writers that we kept showing our students. And the teachers not...
Helping Parents Teach Their Children
Listen Parents are struggling. They are not okay right now. They may be reaching out to you for help, and you may be thinking to yourself, “I didn’t sign up to teach parents how to teach.” However, this is where we’re at. Parents have been tasked with becoming their child’s...
Resource Roundup: Engaging Activities for Online Ed
Listen Things are stressful right now. That’s probably an understatement, but it’s a statement in the right direction. It’s also really difficult to get some of our students to show up for online education and subsequently keep them engaged. One of the most requested discussion focuses on many of the...
Remote Learning Idea #4: Teaching with Movies
Listen Alright class, today we are going to study the historical and cultural context of England during the Neoclassical Period which spanned from roughly 1600 to wah-waah wah-waah wah-waah-waah-waaaaaaaaaaaaah... This is bad enough during a “normal” school year (whatever that means) in a traditional classroom. It can be so frustrating...
Talking to Young Children About Scary Things
Listen Many of us are frightened or overwhelmed right now, and children know that. It isn’t a matter of “if” they notice, but a matter of “when”. Teachers and parents alike have struggled with talking to their children about big, overwhelming topics since the dawn of time. It’s not new,...
Resource Roundup: ELAR and Administration Books for the Pandemic
Listen As more and more schools are extending breaks and/or turning to online instruction in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, more and more teachers and administrators find themselves going a little stir crazy. It’s been impressive and truly beautiful to see various educational resources, publishers, instructional platforms, internet providers, school...
Resource Roundup: PD for the Pandemic
Listen With states and districts closing schools suddenly due to the pandemic, some teachers are finding themselves with two weeks of “early summer”, extended spring break, or even voluntary time at home otherwise avoiding illness. If you’re faced with seemingly endless hours with little to do (after you’re tired of...
Student-Mentoring Programs
Listen Teachers have always had to find creative ways to help students without much family support: a single parent who has to work multiple jobs, a family distracted by crisis, or children removed from an abusive situation. These issues date as far back as any form of civilization, much less...
Preparing for an Interview, Part 2 10 Things You Should Be Prepared to Discuss
Listen In our previous post, we shared some things to do to prepare for the interview, including how to beef up your resume, preparing a portfolio, how to dress, good hygiene, respecting the time of the interviewers, and nonverbals to consider. Now it is time to talk about… well, what...
Tips for Preparing for Possible Health Epidemics
Listen Each year, things like colds, the flu, stomach viruses, strep, and other easily transmittable illnesses are spread among school children and educators. With new threats on the horizon, now is a great time to talk about maintaining good hygiene and health practices in schools. As we watch schools and...
Tips for Coping with Personal Mental Illness
Listen According to NAMI (the National Alliance on Mental Illness), on average, 1 in 5 Americans in the general population experience mental illness at some point in their adult life. 1 in 25 experience severe or chronic mental illnesses. It comes as no surprise that teachers are not an exception...
Combatting Personal Bias in the Classroom
Listen Humans have a natural tendency to want to group themselves with other people who are similar. It’s likely an instinct that at one point helped us survive and keep our families intact. Now, however, the instinct can be less helpful. There are many ways we separate ourselves including race,...