In our article in the Summer 2022 issue of Educational Leadership, my colleague Ann C. Holm and I outline steps schools can take to better protect teachers' "bandwidth" and sense of efficacy. Schools' ability to do this will be critical to both educator…
When groups do this exercise, EVERY item is rated "best" and "worst" by someone. Join me at Learning Forward Minnesota on June 15 for Doable Differentiation--teaching around, not to--cognitive processes to meet the needs of all learners bit.ly/lfmnsummer2022 Why attend?…
In Braiding Sweetgrass (2020), author and professor Robin Wall Kimmerer describes one of her students’ graduate thesis projects. The student was familiar with a disagreement in traditional knowledge about the most sustainable way to harvest sweetgrass. This student designed her…
An off-the-cuff math question, “How much do you suppose they’re making off this ridiculous spectacle?” turned an excruciatingly dull evening into a creative endeavor. Yep, a math question. The other chaperones and I were hostages to a truly ghastly theatrical performance.…
The ideas I penned in this blog back in 2017 are now part of my book Doable Differentiation. Yes, I finished that novel, and yes the same strategies work to motivate students of all ages! Imagine giving a homework assignment that your…
“She made me do the green packet. No teacher should make a student do the green packet if she wants to do the yellow one. I don’t care if it means working harder.” So said a sixth grader in a…
I just learned that there are still a few tickets left for my workshop Holistic Leadership: Everyone Leading From Their Strengths on October 5, just outside of Chicago. Why attend? You receive a copy of my Gold-Medal-winning book on the…
Have you noticed there’s a Women in Education: Leading Perspectives Institute in July? In San Antonio? Are you thinking, "Why an event just for women? Isn’t ‘cross-pollination’ among genders a better way to improve the lives of children?” If you’re…
Okay, if Douglas Adams’s Hitchhiker’s Trilogy can have five volumes, my top five can have seven this year. So many great titles to choose from that I’ve categorized them for any of you who for whatever reasons avoid some genres.…
If I’ve learned one thing in 25 years of workshop facilitation, it’s the importance of experiential exercises. You almost have to wonder whether John Dewey, an American philosopher whose ideas still shape education, had been to a boring, lecture-only type…