When I think about my purchases – even those I make with my kids – more often than not, I am making those purchases online. Why? Not only does it save this busy mom time, it is just so much easier to shop from the comfort of my home than to fight traffic and battle crowds only to find that they don’t even have my size or the color I want.
Research shows that students achieve more for teachers who believe in them.
Knowing that, what steps can we take as educators TODAY to ensure the students we interact with know we believe they CAN achieve? Here are some ideas: Continue reading
Several years ago I heard Jack Canfield speak at the Rigor Relevance Relationships Conference held annually in Cy-Fair ISD. During his presentation, Canfield referenced the E + R = O formula. This is the theory that Event + Response = Outcome, meaning it is not just what happens to you, but how you respond that determines your outcomes.
We are all in this education business for kids. That’s why we come to work each day. And even though for all of us the overriding goal is to do what’s best for our students, sometimes we disagree on what’s best in our state, our district, our school, on our team, or in our classrooms.
After the initial threat of Hurricane Harvey passed and we all began dealing with the aftermath and devastation, I began thinking about and brainstorming ideas for a lesson plan to use in helping students process and work through what happened as well as their fears and anxieties. Continue reading
Sometimes educators (teachers, and administrators alike) can get into the rut of doing it “the way it’s always been done.” But trying something new can not only make the lesson more engaging for the students but taking a risk and trying something new in a lesson can often rejuvenate the instructor as well.
As a school administrator or teacher leader on a campus, here are 6 easy and effective steps you can take to promote a culture of risk-taking on your campus: Continue reading
I love Google Keep! It is such a FANTASTIC way to keep all your thoughts, jots, and ideas in one spot. I use Google Keep daily to make digital sticky notes – and my favorite feature is that I can search those notes to find all my ideas quickly. Continue reading
It is my whole-hearted belief that as administrators, we must model what we want to see in classrooms every chance we get. Last year, the administrative team on my campus began to explore the benefits of blended learning. We discussed in depth how we wanted to roll out a blended learning initiative: Continue reading
My one and a half year old son has a shape sorter. You’ve seen them – a bunch of shapes with a box that has a hole for each shape. He’s gotten pretty good at this little sorting game in his one and half years of life, but occasionally, he misses the mark. Every now and then he tries really hard to get the star through the heart shaped hole, or the circle in the square shaped hole, or as the old saying goes, “the square peg in the round hole.”
Author James Allen states, “A man is literally what he thinks, his character being the complete sum of all his thought.”
Thoughts matter. There is tons of research out there showing that if a teacher truly believes in her students they achieve at higher levels.
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Meredith Akers 