Throughout my years working as a staff developer and coach to teachers and administrators, I have emphasized the importance of supporting educators by simplifying complex concepts while still respecting their intricacy. For an instructional strategy or facilitative technique to be learned and practiced, it must be broken down into a sequence of simple steps. Without […]

What do you want grades to communicate? What do you want to be sure that your grading doesn’t do? When grades are used to teach life lessons, such as responsibility, or punctuality, the intrinsic value of learning for its own sake can be diminished. Does the lack of consistency among teachers’ use of grading create […]

Questions around the role and value of grading have been debated among teachers, administrators, parents and students for many years. In this podcast, Steve explores some of these questions and provides resources for further exploration. How much teacher effort is invested in grading student work, tests, and projects? To what extent does grading positively or […]

I hope you are enjoying a break from school, and finding time for rest, reflection, and renewal before the new year begins. This past year has been one of many different experiences for all of us. Experiences none of us were expecting as we looked ahead at the beginning of 2021. We enter 2022 with […]

As I have been exploring acceleration as a mindset and approach for administrators, teachers, and students looking to the start of the next school year, the topic of instructional agility arose. I reviewed the text, Instructional Agility: Responding to Assessment With Real Time Decisions, and recorded a podcast with Tom Schimmer. I asked Tom to […]

I am working with several school systems and their instructional coaches and administrators to support teachers in creating a mindset and actions of acceleration rather than remediation as they begin the coming school year. Here are some of the resources I’ve found that might be helpful to you in planning your professional development and coaching. […]