Choice Learning Interactive Hyperslides

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Choice Learning (1)

I was working on preparing for a day-long professional development coming up on my campus. Throughout the year staff members have shared different professional development needs that they would like me to cover when possible. As I began to plan how to cover all of the different topics requested, I realized that not everyone is on the same level or has the same learning needs for each topic. While some teachers need the basics of how to set up a twitter account, others want to know how to effectively use hashtags, and still others are twitter experts. And that’s only the topic of twitter! How could I possibly meet everyone’s needs without having them sit through information they already know or don’t care about? Continue reading →

#KindFabFeb

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#kindfabfeb (1)

Last year, my good friend and fellow principal Jennifer Vest ( @PrincipalVest ) told me about a kindness challenge she created for her staff to encourage them to share kindness with students, family, and each other. As a member of the #momsasprincipals PLN, I often listen and read through the amazing ideas shared by this group of leaders in our Voxer group. This week as I was scrolling through, the topic of conversation was motivating staff through the month of February – which is widely known as a morale slump. One colleague posted a calendar of fun treats and celebrations to help staff have a Fabulous February. Continue reading →

4 Take-aways from edcamp Cy-Fair 2019

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edcampcy-fair2018 (1)

This weekend I had the joy of being a part of edcamp Cy-Fair. If you’ve never attended an edcamp, it is a gathering of educators who come together with no agenda – to learn and grow from the knowledge each person in attendance holds. We brainstormed topics we wanted to discuss, created a schedule of what would be discussed in which rooms, and had real conversations with other hard-working educators. I loved hearing what others are doing in their schools and classrooms that work and brainstorming together ways to improve things that aren’t working. Here were my 4 biggest take-aways from edcamp Cy-Fair 2019: Continue reading →

Engage your Audience with Video

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video graphic

As educators, we’ve got important information that we want to convey to students, parents, staff, and often our community members. While verbally sharing our stories or writing them down for others to reference still have their place (ahem… like writing a blog, for example…), more and more, people prefer to receive their information by watching quick little videos.

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3 Apps to Visually Market Your School or Classroom

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3 Apps

Educators are hearing all the time how we need to market our schools and classrooms – telling our story – the great things happening in our classrooms – so that others don’t fill in the void with negative stories. So many educators have jumped on board with this idea of sharing our stories and pointing the spotlight to all the positive things happening in our schools, but how can we do that most effectively? What do the marketing experts say? They say we should be using visuals to SHOW our story as we tell it. Continue reading →

#MakeDecemberMagic Twitter Challenge

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#MakeDecemberMagic (2)

Want to keep kids engaged in your learning and not dreaming of Santa and presents? Need some motivation for the weeks leading up to the Winter Break?

Take the #MakeDecemberMagic Challenge! Not only will it fuel you with ideas of what to tweet (if you’re new to twitter), but it will challenge you to keep things fresh, positive, and fun for your students so that you’re not just trudging through until the break, but you are *hopefully* motivated to #MakeDecemberMagic for students! Continue reading →

From Thanksgiving to Christmas: Positive Incentives and Templates that WORK!

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From Christmas - graphic

I can’t believe it’s here already, but here we are: that span of time that can sometimes feel like one of the longest stretches of the school year – the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas. We’ve had a taste of break. Those days off felt great! We’re refreshed and rejuvenated (well, I am anyway 😉)! The first week back feels great! But then, the closer we get to Christmas break, the more excited about Christmas the students get and the more stressed we tend to get. Why? I say the culprit is… presents! Kids are excited about them and we’re stressed because we’ve got to get them all (and clean our houses for guests, and prepare meals… so much to do before the big day)! Continue reading →

Fail Fast, Fail Forward

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Fail Fast, Fail Forward

A pottery teacher split her class into two halves. To the first half she said, “You will spend the semester studying pottery, planning, designing, and creating your perfect pot. At the end of the semester, there will be a competition to see whose pot is the best”.

To the students in the other half of the class she said, “You will spend your semester making lots of pots. Your grade will be based on the number of completed pots you finish. At the end of the semester, you’ll also have the opportunity to enter your best pot into a competition.” Continue reading →

Fun with Feedback

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Fun with Feedback (1)

I just finished reading The New Pillars of Modern Teaching by Gayle Allen as a part of an awesome online book study facilitated by Region 10 in Texas. In the book, Allen compares the amount of feedback teachers typically get in a year to the amount of feedback Uber drivers get with this table: Continue reading →

Book Study in a Box

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Book Study in a Box

I am currently participating in a book study on The New Pillars of Modern Teaching by Gayle Allen facilitated by Kathryn Laster @kklaster of Region 10. The book challenges educators to provide learners with choice in the time, place, medium, and socialness of their learning. Kathryn and her team have done an outstanding job of giving book study participants like me power over their learning in each of these areas throughout the book study. Continue reading →