Demonstrating Knowledge of Resources

6 Questions to Tackle in Being Exemplary When Communicating with Students

Actions speak louder than words! To connect with our students we must think about the words and the actions we take in and out of the classroom. One of the first education books I read was Harry Wong’s 1997 book titled, The First Days of School: How to Be an Effective Teacher. The accompanying videos…

7 Questions to Ask in Managing Student Behavior

One of the qualities that will get you hired faster than anything else is the ability to manage a classroom full of students. Administrators shy away from hiring new teachers that have a difficult time managing students. The amount of time an administrator must put into teaching and training a new teacher to manage student…

5 Questions to Tackle in Organizing the Physical Space in Your Classroom

Five rows with six desks in each row…each row is two feet from the next with every desk pointed to the front of the room where the chalkboard and teacher desk are located. Does this paint the picture of the standard old school classroom? Starting in first grade, I could be labeled by front row…

How Can Parents Explain Episodes of Gun Violence to Very Young Children Without Filling Them with Fear?

I am a principal of a K-6 school in Great Falls, MT (65,000). We are a rural state with many conservative (Republican) viewpoints on gun legislation. In the city I preside, predominately Democrat, there are different viewpoints than the rest of the state. This has been a question we have tackled as administrators and teachers,…

6 Questions to Tackle in Managing Classroom Procedures

How can Finland students, touted as one of the highest-ranking OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries in education, score as high as they do on the PISA (Programming for International Student Assessment) data when they are in school 400 hours less than students in America? This is answered with a multitude of retorts,…

5 Questions in Establishing a Culture for Learning

What do Google, Facebook, Nike, Apple, and Walt Disney have in common? They are five of the top ten corporations in which people said they loved to work, according to a recent USA Today article. They all have a positive and enticing work culture. Mirriam-Webster defines corporate culture as the set of shared attitudes, values,…

6 Questions to Tackle in Creating an Environment of Respect and Rapport

Have you seen the magic between the best teachers and the most difficult students? It seems these teachers know how to connect and correct behavior through positive and meaningful conversations. As an administrator, you want to video these interactions and hit “play” for others to see the subtleness, yet effective words these teachers use. Likewise,…

8 Questions to Tackle in Designing Student Assessments

One of the most controversial educational topics in the past two decades… a four-letter word… is “TEST!” If you ask an educator, they may have more four-letter words to accompany it! Many of us do not shirk our responsibilities to assess our students….we know it needs to be done. What many of us are upset…

7 Questions in Designing Coherent Instruction

Is the ability to design instruction an art form, or is it a science? I argue teachers have to be artists while thinking about the science of not only the make-up of their classrooms, but what information should come next in the learning process. Robert Marzano talks about the art and science in teaching in…