Words carry weight—especially in schools. Educators have countless research studies that exhibit the power of teachers’ language on students’ effort and learning outcomes. As an example, the research of Carol Dweck shows that students who hear “You worked really hard on this” instead of “You’re so smart” show significant improvement on subsequent tasks and are […]

Feedback doesn’t create learning by itself—learning happens when students reflect on, act upon, and integrate feedback into their work.  Teachers don’t cause student achievement. Students do. Our role as educators is to design environments, tasks, and relationships that enable students to produce the learning behaviors that generate achievement. One of those critical learning behaviors is […]

Early into the virtual learning move last spring I was hearing from teachers that they were having more short observations/visits to their instruction from principals than when everyone was at school. Most teachers shared that they appreciated the encouraging responses they received. I sensed that principals felt a need to cheerlead as teachers tackled new […]

This was the title of a blog I found written by Steve Keating, Selling Skills Manager with Toro Company.  In keeping with my experience, if I spend 10 minutes on Twitter I’ll learn something new and/or find a resource I can use. Stranded in an airport with delayed flights I went to Twitter and found […]

I am often caught by the incongruity when leaders (including myself) miss the opportunity to model the model….when we forget to “walk the talk” ….when our behavior with staff doesn’t mirror the behaviors we are recommending they use with students. (The administrators who give a lecture on why lecturing is an ineffective instructional process.  The […]