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Freedom Over Fear by Laura McDonell
Listen The Freedom That Comes From Having the Courage to Take Risks I never lose. I either win, or I learn. (Nelson Mandela) Take Risks The previous two words come up a lot in conversation about growth and education. Often educators, when asked about different topics, will add ¨take risks¨...
I AM Poetry? by: Laura McDonell
Listen The Possibility of Being a Natural Poet You Are A Poet I have had several identities throughout my life. There are several things I belong to. However, when I heard that I was a poet, I was surprised. I have never thought of myself as someone who writes poetry....
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...
I Never Thought About That What If My Assumptions were Wrong By: Laura McDonell
Listen The Student Perspective Seeing things from the student’s perspective is challenging. After watching one of Dr. Kevin Leichtman’s videos, I realized that there might be a few things regarding education that I have never thought about. Understanding motivations behind student actions is a priority. The Perfect Ten offered me...
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...
Seeing My Students by: Laura McDonell
Listen Looking and seeing are two different things. (John Paul Caponigro) Allowing someone the opportunity to be seen and noticed is a gift. When I think about how many times I have quickly glanced around the classroom to “see” that my students are present and what they are working on,...
Find the Ones Who Haven’t Given Up by: Laura McDonell
Listen One of my favorite movie scenes is the final scene in the movie Tomorrowland. The movie stars scientist Frank Walker, played by George Clooney, who at the end instructs Casey Newton (Britt Robertson), as well as several other kids in Tomorrowland, to go out and find the people who...
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...
“Fine” is A Terrible Word by Laura McDonell
Being Honest Does Not Necessarily Mean You are Negative It is okay, to be honest. It is okay, to be honest, but it is not okay, to be honest and unwilling to look for a way to move forward. While it is true that the more positive we are, the...
Making Memories for Students by Hollie Hamaker
Listen "Everyone who remembers his own education remembers teachers, not methods, and techniques. The teacher is the heart of the educational system." -Sidney Hook Think of your favorite teacher from when you were in school. What do you remember from them? I doubt it was taking notes or listening to...
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...
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...
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...
Change the Behavior, Change the Class (Part Two) by Hollie Hamaker
Listen In the second installment about changing behavior, we will talk about how rewards can impact your classroom. I highly recommend reading the first article before reading this one, as I reference it at one point a few paragraphs below. Some days, it seems impossible to create an atmosphere in...
Show Students What’s Inside Your Head: Make Your Thinking Visible By Laura McDonell
Listen I can still remember Algebra class in high school. This class was different from other math classes. It was as if I went from being taught in a foreign language to entering a classroom where English was spoken. I could not believe that I understood what the teacher was...
Listening
Listen For teachers, this has become a year of “windows”. We’ve spoken to our students through the window of a computer screen, whether through pre-recorded lessons or live classes. The screen recorder counts down and then we’re going through the details of the instruction, or watching the squares as they...
Reformation: Attitudes About Student Learning Ability
Listen We’ve all heard the idea that every student can learn, but believing that takes on a whole new level of faith when you’re in the trenches with struggling students. Our gut instinct is to get out of the situation and hand that student over to someone “more qualified” to...
Reformation: Content Delivery
Listen Lecture is incredibly difficult to get away from, isn’t it? Even in the earlier grades, it’s often difficult to let go and let discover rather than presenting all the information known to mankind in the areas in which we are certified experts. Science tells us that lecture is ineffective...
The Schoolhouse, Your House
Listen This year, we’ve all been lifted out of the familiar spaces we’ve enjoyed teaching for so long and are having to set up a home office that works well for both recorded lessons and live instruction. All the while, many of us have to think of the most important...
The Most Important Piece of the Virtual Classroom Puzzle: Re-Engagement - Laura McDonell
Listen Imagine this. You are a 10th grader. Week one, you are coming off summer break to find out that your parents signed you up for virtual learning. Frustration is an understatement as you beg and beg to go to school in person. In an effort to show...
Book Review: The Distance Learning Playbook
Listen I was mowing the yard, listening to some education podcasts a couple of weeks ago, and listened to two different podcasters interview the authors of The Distance Learning Playbook: Teaching for Engagement & Impact in Any Setting. First, it was Justin Baeder of Principal Center Radio interviewing Douglas Fisher....
Tips for Virtual Teaching for Lower Elementary
Listen Introduction Teaching elementary students online is a difficult prospect, but a necessary one given the circumstances of the world today. There are naysayers who will say that teaching online at this age is impossible, that the difficulties and barriers make virtual teaching ineffective.This is not true, but it is...
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...
Student Reflections on Virtual and Hybrid Learning
Listen There is no question that this has been a very challenging year for teachers and administrators (OK, understatement doesn’t even begin to describe that statement). But, our students are facing these challenges without the benefit of maturity, life experience, or a college degree! Let’s not forget that...
Reformation: Embracing the Outdoors
Listen In this article, we’ll take a step away from our eleven leaders and reach a bit further out, because there are many schools around the world who have used the opportunity the pandemic has provided to be outdoors more. Pre-pandemic, many schools and districts in the U.S. added more...
Part 2: Reformation: Indoor Learning Environments
Listen In our last article, we discussed how the Ron Clark Academy, Wooranna Park Primary, and Fuji Yochien embrace and have designed environments that are used to fulfill their mission statements and pedagogy. Here are a few more leaders in this area. International School of Hellerup in Copenhagen The International...
Part 1: Reformation: Indoor Learning Environments
Listen We thought we were breaking boundaries with flexible seating. The reality is, though, we’re probably still doing everything the same. The only difference is just that we’ve offered our students “fun” chairs. Reforming education is no more about offering the same old, tired content to kids sitting on bouncy...
Checking in on Mental Health
Listen We have written a lot about mental health in the last 6 months since the world seems to have gotten turned upside down, but that’s just how important of a topic it is! While most of this seems to have started with the COVID-19 pandemic back in March, the...
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”...
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...
The Class Is Half Full
Listen There is a lot for us to complain about when it comes to where we find ourselves as teachers these days. This is arguably the most difficult time to be a teacher in several decades. We are all relearning how to teach. Anxiety and stress are at all-time highs...
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...
Your Most Marketable Skills, Part 1
Listen Communication, Instruction, and Complex Thinking Skills Educators in some parts of the U.S. have started seeing the economic repercussions of the pandemic. Some places have started to shed staff as budgets crumble and belts tighten.In other places, teachers are finding returning to teaching in the fall in either virtual...
Teaching Culturally Responsive Literature: Part 5, Asian American Literature
Listen A year ago, Hollywood was all abuzz with the release of Crazy Rich Asians. It was the first all-Asian cast movie to be released from a major studio in over 25 years. How is it that a cultural subpopulation of over 21,000,000 has received such little attention in modern...
Teaching Culturally Responsive Literature: Part 4, Literature Dealing with Low Socio-Economics
Listen Regardless of your political preferences or perspectives, it is undeniable that we are entering into a time of great economic distress. More and more of our students are going to be dealing with poverty, hunger, and housing insecurity. The financial difficulty often leads to additional stresses at home, including...
Non-Education Careers That Fit Well with Education Experience
Listen Whether you’ve been ousted from your position as the result of downsizing, you’re choosing a different path because of issues with the setup of the next school year, or you’re just looking for a way to add income to your salary each month, there are many non-education jobs that...
Teaching CTE Courses Virtually
Listen How do cosmetology students get the experience cutting hair or doing manicures, especially when teacher modeling and feedback is the major component of instruction? In Ag classes, the animals still have to be fed and cared for, and many students’ animals are housed at the school’s ag barn. Health...
How Do I Do a Science Lab Virtually?
Listen Doing a lab with a room full of kids can be unnerving in the best of conditions, whether they are 6, 12, or 16. You have balance explicit directions, chemicals, and scalpels with immaturity, ADHD, and power struggles (and that may just be your PLC). How in the world...
Teaching Culturally Responsive Literature: Part 3, Hispanic/Latinx Literature
Listen Students of Latin heritage cannot be placed into a box, though they are often stereotyped. While there are 20 countries in Central and South America, many teachers just assume that Hispanic students are of Mexican descent. Trouble with the English language is often quite incorrectly associated with an...
Teaching Culturally Responsive Literature: Part 1, LGBTQ+
Listen It is not appropriate as educators to tell students what to believe, but it is our duty to foster an environment that welcomes every individual and provides a safe space where they can learn. Schools are to be a microcosm of society at large in which students can practice...
Adapted Physical Education
Listen For many, the Life Skills hallway on a school campus is a place of joy. Administrators can be found high-fiving and dancing with the students as a reprieve from their burdensome load. General education students often enjoy volunteering and assisting. Visitors can be greeted by peels of laughter and...
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...
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...
Be the Change
Listen If you’ve ever walked into a break room at lunchtime, you know that all of the educational experts are sitting in that room talking about the problems and solutions of day-to-day classroom life. And yet, it seems as though the experts are never the people making the decisions! Teachers...
How to Advocate for Change: A General Guide for Teachers and Paraprofessionals
Listen Present the Facts Once you are prepared, don’t just show up at your principal’s door or a board meeting without an appointment. After all that work, you need your administrator to listen to you and give you their undivided attention for 20 to 30 minutes. Arrive on time for...
How to Advocate for Change: A General Guide for Teachers and Paraprofessionals
Listen So far in this series, we’ve talked about narrowing your focus to one specific need or complaint, gathering others to help you make a change, and identifying the decision-maker(s) you should address in asking for changes.Today we’ll focus on something many teachers overlook or skip: doing your homework. We’re...