Senate Passes Edujobs Bill
The Senate passed the Edujobs Bill today. Here is the good news: The bill is explicit that the money would have to be used for salaries, benefits, and support services for school staff. Districts also...
View ArticleNew School-Year Resolutions
With the start of school quickly approaching, most educators (the good ones at least) are thinking a lot about how they will do things differently for the upcoming school-year. Larry Ferlazzo writes...
View ArticleVocabulary Development: A Way with (Splashed) Words
Below is a guest blog entry from a participating teacher at Luther Burbank High School in Sacramento, CA In my four years of teaching Pebble Creek Literacy I've come to really love the word splash. I...
View ArticleMore on Word Splash w/classroom pics
I appreciated Dana’s post about Pebble Creek’s primary vocabulary strategy, Word Splash. We all desire an expanding vocabulary for our students; yet, as with many literacy skills, we confuse teaching...
View ArticleStudent Metacognition-Transfer and Implementation
As a staff developer, a principle tenant or truth drives our work… teacher development regarding instructional strategies is about transfer and implementation. If what we bring to teachers does not...
View ArticleHumor, Sheep and School Reform
Check out this very funny video sent to me by teacher Lara Hoekstra. On one level its hilarious, on another a little disturbing due to its accuracy. It certainly invites discussion about why and how we...
View ArticleThe Power of Video Tape, a different spin
I have referenced a few times how Pebble Creek is turning more of its energies to the use of video for coaching and training. There is nothing quite like “seeing” good (and bad) models for training...
View ArticleWhen the Average Score is the Top Possible Score-- Articulating Skills that...
The other day I was leading a training with one of our Sacramento high schools and came upon a really interesting discussion and question. The group was 9th grade English teachers, a very thoughtful...
View ArticleTape and Analysis to Produce Growth, not a Score
In an earlier post I shared an article teacher and blogger Larry Ferlazzo wrote about a taping experience we conducted together. That article has since been published in Teacher Magazine and the...
View ArticleAcademic Conferences - Simple, Elegant, Powerful
When talking about effective instructional strategies, I often hear myself describing them by saying “the power of this strategy is in its simplicity.” And I think that is so apt, as the best...
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