Creating a Professional Learning Community It takes careful planning to form a useful and functional PLC, but once the foundation is built, the benefits will soon be evident. How is it possible for a school to create an effective professional learning community? Here are a few things if implemented correctly will help answer this question: […]
Mentorship is one of the most important steps districts can take to stop teachers from leaving but providing mentorship opportunities in a time of social distancing can be difficult. Our nation is experiencing a teacher-retention crisis especially when the pressures and stresses for teachers keep growing. Many new or novice educators are leaving the profession […]
As a teacher teaching during distance learning, I have to say that I am very concerned about students and the chronic absences that I am seeing on a daily basis. According to Harrington (2020), “some districts are finding an alarming percentage of students missing from the virtual classroom with the worst absentee rates occurring among […]
The COVID-19 pandemic is overwhelming the functioning and results of the education system, some of which were already stressed in many respects. This is true across the United States and the world and affects all children, though to different degrees. According to Garcia and Weiss (2020), “In early spring as the pandemic was hitting its […]
Teacher Growth Mindset Pushing our students to adopt a growth mindset can seem to be easy, but what about adopting one for teachers? For a teacher, it’s easy to focus on improving students but we need to do better at looking at ourselves to better our own craft. Typically, we succeed as a teacher because […]
It has been widely known and agreed that educators need more knowledge, skills, practice, and support after they enter the profession. Most teachers and administrators want professional development. Most teachers want to improve their craft, be more effective, implement new skills, and see students learn more. Unfortunately, that sometimes isn’t readily available when you are […]
I recently watched a TED Talk on “Why students should have mental health days”, and it really made me think about the pressures that some of our students struggle with daily. Some students are academically stressed, while others have stress they bring with them from home, but the one that is now beginning to come […]
Each school system has a process for measuring and evaluating their teachers. In most districts, all teachers are evaluated by an administrator and provided feedback at least once annually. New teachers, however, typically have more than one evaluation. So why is it important to evaluate the teachers one has on staff? In general, teacher evaluation […]
Recently, I have read several articles on teacher tenure and whether the state of California should change their process. I personally never paid attention to this topic and always assumed that 2 years was enough and that we would get great teachers after the probation period. As a future administrator I now know that is […]