Stay Organized, My Friend

I had a great To Do list to help me get organized.  I just don’t know what I To Did with it. or-gan-ized – adjective – having one’s affairs and items in order so as to deal with them efficiently. Does the word organized make you heave a sigh and yearn for the time when that adjective might be used…

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Tricks of the Trade – Be Intentional

“Change is inevitable.  Growth is intentional.”  – Glenda Cloud The school year is moving quickly, teachers are stretched, and students are growing weary.  There are still many days ahead to fill with quality learning opportunities and you want to make each one count, so teach on!  Remember – don’t just have good intentions – be…

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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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Reflection = Growth

“Self-reflection is a humbling process.  It’s essential to find out why you think, say, and do certain things . . . then better yourself.”  – Sonya Teclai The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards states, “Thinking analytically about teaching is complicated because teaching is complicated.”  Teachers generally have little time for self-analysis and reflection, yet…

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No Quick Fixes

“Every spring, education-related newspaper and magazine stories raise the alarm that schools are teaching to the test. Scores of articles and editorials paint a disheartening picture of frustrated teachers forced to abandon good instructional practices for a relentless stream of worksheets based on boring, repetitive test-preparation materials.”  Craig Jerald It’s hard for teachers to stay…

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The Tribe

This:  “Four Lessons for Life, Leadership, and Learning: A Tribute to the Late Grant Wiggins” by Stephanie Malia Krauss In 2015, we mourned the loss of Grant Wiggins (blog).  Over ten years ago, we were introduced to the writing and thinking of Grant Wiggins before Education Resource Group was ever dreamed about.  Whenever we saw…

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Start a Reading Movement

From the desk of Alice… I recently went to my child’s bookfair and came across the book Igniting a Passion for Reading by Steven Layne.  I read this book several years ago and loved it so I picked it up for one of my ERG principals because I thought she would really appreciate it.  We recently…

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Where We Need the Best of the Best

From the desk of Alice… “Gentlemen, you are the top 1% of all naval aviators — the elite, the BEST of the best. We’ll make you better. Fly at least two combat missions a day, attend classes in between, and evaluations of your performance. Now in each combat sequence you’re going to meet a different…

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Leading From the Classroom

From the desk of Hope… There is nothing more exciting to me than classroom innovation and teacher leadership. ERG contracts with schools for multiple years with a job embedded coaching model. The beautiful thing about multiple year contracts is we get to see the rewards of the work from the previous year. It reminds me…

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