It’s that time of year again when my schedule often contains “opening day” presentations, end of summer professional development events or planning sessions for administrators and/or teachers. One of the discussions I try to facilitate explores what messages educators want to communicate to students and/or teachers concerning environment and relationships. I believe that consciously deciding […]

Reggie Rivers, a previous NFL player and now motivational speaker shared the following in a TED Talk , If you want to achieve your goals, don’t focus on them. That’s a different approach than most of us are used to hearing, but his explanation makes so much sense. He explained that it is not the […]

I frequently mention the importance of “knowing” in my training and consulting.  Communication increases when people are known to each other.  When a middle school science teacher can’t tell me the name of someone teaching freshman science at the high school, I know that communication about curriculum alignment or student needs is not going to […]

How important do you believe it is for teachers to build relationships with students as a component of students reaching their maximum learning success? How do school leaders and coaches assist teachers in planning for relationship building? How do leaders communicate a belief and value in teachers’ purposeful planning for knowing students? In what ways […]

An article by Lisa Lai in The Harvard Business Review, Motivating Employees Is Not About Carrots or Sticks, provides some points worth considering in looking at student and educator motivation in schools. Lai states, “I’d like to suggest a new dialogue that embraces the key concept that motivation is less about employees doing great work and […]

Recently I had the opportunity to present at two international educator conferences that provided time for me to be a participant in workshops and keynotes. Two presenters re-triggered my focus on how powerful learning can occur when students engage in real-world issues. At the Near East South Asia (NESA) conference in Abu Dhabi, I attended […]