One of the shifts I have long encouraged teachers to make—especially in their PLCs—is to consider how much of their attention is focused on teaching and how much is focused on student learning. That’s not because teaching isn’t important. Teachers need strong instructional skills, thoughtful planning, engaging strategies, and deep content knowledge. But teaching […]

Teacher to teacher conversations are powerful when they expose us to perspectives we would not generate on our own. Left to ourselves, we tend to revisit familiar assumptions, interpretations, and solutions. We think within the boundaries of our current mental models. Dialogue creates the opportunity for those mental models to be challenged, refined, or expanded. […]

Keith Young, a co-author of, “The Teaching Strategy Handbook: 200+ Solutions for Common Classroom Challenges,” explores the strategies from the book’s Chapter 8, “Teacher Burnout and Stress.” Keith shares the practices individual teachers can implement as well as the roles that teacher leaders, instructional coaches and administrators can play in support of teachers. The impact […]

One focus of my work with PLCs is increasing the degree to which PLCs function as teams rather than as meetings of franchise holders. In many schools, teachers can unintentionally operate as owners of separate classrooms, courses, or content areas. As true teams, however, teachers share accountability for the success of all students represented by […]

Collaborative work in schools is often measured by structures: scheduled PLC meetings, common planning time, walkthroughs, data reviews, and team agendas. But simply placing educators in these “meetings” does not automatically produce collaboration. Teams can meet regularly and still leave with very different understandings of what they are trying to accomplish. Recently, I encountered Rod […]

How often has this happened to you? You’re listening to a teacher describe her frustration with a group of students. Halfway through, you recognize the situation. You’ve seen it before. You solved it when you were teaching. You know what will help. Even if you don’t interrupt, you’re no longer fully listening — you’re thinking […]