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Is The Classroom Culture Ready For PBL? #HackingPBL
Over the next month I will be publishing 5 posts as sneak peaks for our upcoming book, Hacking Project Based Learning, which was written with Ross Cooper (@rosscoops31) and will be released this winter. When you observe the classroom of an accomplished project based learning (PBL) teacher, the joyful rhythm…
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Busting 5 Myths of Inquiry-Based Learning #HackingPBL
Over the next few months I’ll be publishing 5 posts as sneak peaks for our upcoming book, Hacking Project Based Learning, which was written with Ross Cooper (@rosscoops31) and will be released this winter. A major tenet of project based learning is inquiry and this post helps address some…
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Is it time for a messy conversation?
As humans, we tend to avoid confrontations. They make our pulse quicken and our sweat glands kick in, and they are all around uncomfortable. Our fear of messy conversations keeps us from challenging the status quo. Instead we admire problems and discuss theoretical solutions. The unfortunate truth: we need…
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3 Instructional Routines to Enhance Engagement
Over the last three weeks I have met with many of our teachers for our year-end meetings. While these meetings are often viewed simply as compliance tasks, I was blown away by the level of reflection shared by so many of the teachers with whom I had the privilege…
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The End of Marking Periods – My Takeaways
Two years ago, I joined the administrative team at Eyer Middle School. On my first day, principal Michael Kelly (@principalmkelly), filled me in on the work the school had done to improve grading and assessment practices. He shared some research with me, and as a self proclaimed book nerd,…
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Ed Leadership: Balancing Instructional Coach and Evaluator
One of my greatest challenges as a building administrator is balancing my passion for instructional coaching with my role as evaluator. Our teacher evaluation model, while weighted down with cumbersome mathematics and documentation, offers a valuable opportunity to interact with teachers on authentic work impacting their classrooms. Below are…
