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Get support and guidance from change makers who are organizing and implementing real improvements to our educational system.

Deeper Learning Means Educational Equity in Urban Schools

Elena AguilarJanuary 28, 2013

Tags Achievement Gap, Urban Schools

Many of the deeper learning blogs in this series have addressed what teachers can do within the classroom in order to guide their students into rigorous, meaningful, deep learning experiences. Teacher practice is a core area to focus on, but without naming and valuing the structural conditions which support teachers to develop these pedagogical skills, the promise of deeper learning can't be realized.

Deeper Learning: Defining Twenty-First Century Literacy

Rebecca AlberJanuary 21, 2013

Tags College Readiness, Literacy, Media Literacy, All Grades

Only a decade and a few years in, how can we fully describe the twenty-first century learner? So far, this we do know: She is a problem solver, critical thinker, and an effective collaborator and communicator. We also know that a deeper learning environment is required in order to nurture and grow such a learner.

Teacher Collaboration: When Belief Systems Collide

Elena AguilarJanuary 15, 2013

Tags All Grades

Last month I reflected on team development and how we can work more effectively together in schools. It's impossible to explore these ideas without considering conflict -- an inevitable part of working together. Conflict can be challenging and destructive, or it can lead to deeper understandings between people and perhaps higher quality work from a team.

A Teacher's Anti-Resolutions for the New Year

Nicholas ProvenzanoJanuary 14, 2013

Tags Best Practices, Classroom Management, Teacher Development, All Grades

It is the New Year, and it is time to start making promises to yourself that you know you will not keep. In that spirit, I'm going to make some New Year's Anti-Resolutions that I look forward to failing at keeping.

One Week Later: Healing Sandy Hook

David MarkusDecember 21, 2012

Tags Current Events, Mental Health, National, Teacher Development

It has been one week. The surreal string of heart-wrenching funeral services is winding down. The Sandy Hook children who survived have been placed in another school, and they will return in January. There is the facade of movement and activity in Newtown, Connecticut, but down deep, there is deep-seated grief and the inextinguishable memories of the 26 wonderful human beings gone too soon. It will be a long while before the families and educators will feel anything close to right again. But there are ways we can help and hasten the day when it hurts a little less.

Student Research: The Right Information at the Right Time

Terry HeickDecember 19, 2012

Tags Classroom Technology, Media Literacy, Technology Integration, Middle (6-8), High (9-12)

Google puts a universe of information at the end of any Internet connection.

This is both true and unhelpful. It offers up the universe, but no one needs the universe -- they need the right information, and they need it at the right time.

A fact. A concept. An image. A resource. Maybe a new perspective.

The Fiscal Cliff: Why You Should Care and What You Can Do

Anne OBrienDecember 17, 2012

Tags Current Events

It is easy to ignore the noise from Washington, DC, about the upcoming fiscal cliff. The tone from the Capitol hardly seems changed from the pre-election rhetoric that made many of us tune out what politicians have to say.

What Can School Teams Learn from Geese?

Elena AguilarDecember 13, 2012

Tags Leadership, Professional Development

My last two posts have been reflections on what I've learned this fall about the role that teams can play in transforming schools. The final installment in this series is not original -- I didn't come up with these ideas -- but just in case you haven't come across "Lessons We Learn from Geese," I wanted to share these. There are many versions of this all over the Internet, all of which say, "Author unknown." Here's a version I like.

Winter Reading: What's on Your Bedside Table?

Elena AguilarDecember 11, 2012

Tags Literacy, Teacher Development, English Language Arts

I gestured to the stack of books next to my bed and said to my nine-year-old son, "Those are the books I'm going to read this winter break!"

"All of them!?" he exclaimed. "I don't think you can read all of those."

He might be right. I've gathered nine books, over 3500 pages of text, that I'm hoping to devour starting this weekend when my break begins. After a year and a half of almost exclusively reading education-related books, I'm craving stories and beautifully crafted sentences . . . and plot and character and action and historical fiction and science fiction . . . and that almost trace-like state that we enter when we're consumed by a novel.

Common Core Big Idea 5: Consider Meaningful Assessment

Jay McTigheDecember 7, 2012

Tags Common Core Standards, Curriculum, Education Reform

Editor's note: This is the fifth post in a five-part series which takes a look at five big ideas for implementation of the Common Core State Standards, authored by Jay McTighe and Grant Wiggins.

A prevalent misconception about standards in general is that they simply specify learning goals to be achieved. A more complete and accurate conception, in line with the colloquial meaning of the term, recognizes that standards also refer to the desired qualities of student work and the degree of rigor that must be assessed and achieved.