Owning Less

“A spoonful of decluttering keeps the stress and chaos down.”  Mary Poppins may not have said this, but surely she thought it.  After all she was all about tidiness. Articles and books are everywhere on the topic of throwing out the excess “things” in your life.  The methods they propose may be different, but all…

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Mirror Mirror On the Wall

“Mirror, mirror on the wall.  What did I learn after all?” Reflection is a vital piece of the learning puzzle.  Unless we examine what we learned and how we learned it, we don’t know what worked well and what needs to be tweaked.  The end of the year is a natural time to look back…

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Sharing Ideas

Sharing knowledge occurs when people are genuinely interested in helping one another develop new capacities for action; it is about creating learning processes.  (Peter Senge) This is what we do as teachers…help one another, be it our students or our peers, grow as individuals and as professionals.  We do this by sharing what we know…

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Feedback – The Language of Growth

“Feedback is the breakfast of champions.”  – Ken Blanchard Years of research show that feedback is one of the most powerful influences on achievement.  Daily we strive to provide quality feedback to our students, but we also must take the time to provide quality feedback to our colleagues.  Feedback is the language of growth.  It is…

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New Avenues to Better Teaching

This month ERG has focused on Instructional Leadership and Peer Coaching.  In one of our recent newsletters it was noted that ” Leadership in education is about learning – and not just the empowerment of student learning.  As instructional leaders, teachers assume a wide range of roles to support the learning needs of students –…

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Power of Yet

“There is a difference between not knowing and not knowing yet.”  – Shelia Tobias Research is showing that the brain is like a muscle that gets stronger and works better the more it is exercised.  Each time we work hard, take on a challenge, stretch, and learn something new, our brains form new connections and our…

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Teachers Observing Teachers

“The most valuable resource that all teachers have is each other.  Without collaboration our growth is limited to our own perspectives.”  – Robert John Meehan More and more teachers and administrators are finding that peer observations are a form of collaborative professional development that truly delivers.  A school culture that encourages and promotes this sharing of…

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Looking at Fixed and Growth Mindsets

What is a mindset?  A mindset is a set of beliefs about your intelligence, talent, and success.  It determines how you interpret and respond to given situations. Is there more than one type of mindset?  Yes.  After decades of research Dr. Carol Dweck of Stanford University determined there are two basic mindsets.  One is fixed…

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What Really Counts?

“Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything we count, counts.”  – Albert Einstein We have become a nation of numbers – driven by statistics and data.  The fixation on testing, scoring, and ranking our young learners is not what really counts when it comes to learning.  Randi Weingarten, the President of the…

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May the Force Be With You

Star Wars fans know Yoda, the legendary Jedi Master – small in size but wise and powerful.  He trained his Jedi students to think – “Mind what you have learned – save you it can.”  The ability to think critically is a powerful skill.  It is the force that allows us to actively analyze, synthesize,…

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