Picture yourself walking into a classroom for the first time. You don’t know anyone. You find a seat and look around. Does anyone look like you? Whose images, quotes, and posters are on the walls? Are you greeted with a smile? Will you know how to ask for help when you need it? Will you […]
Walkthrough Tools for a Busy Principal School leaders, you are pivotal to everything that happens in your school! Budgets, schedules, staffing, parent concerns, bus problems, student discipline, board reports, a leaky roof . . . a tall order! Too often, instructional leadership slips away under the urgent requests of any given day. Yes, teacher observations […]
What Do We Do with Screen Time? If you lead an elementary school, you have likely heard the concerns: Screens harm children’s eyes. Screens rewire young brains. Young children need books and blocks, not tablets. The media shares research and warnings; parents raise these worries at back-to-school night and parent meetings; teachers raise them in […]
It All Comes Down to Executive Function Positive behavior is dependent upon strong executive function. Punishments and bribes will do little to change behavior. We have to get to the root causes of behavior problems. A very important root cause is a lack of developmentally appropriate executive function. Academic achievement depends on executive function. Mental […]
What’s with the Tiers? Tier 1 is the instruction every student gets, every day. It has to be designed to work for a room full of students with different backgrounds, different language levels, different prior knowledge, different cognitive abilities, and different readiness . . . all at once. That’s a tall order, and it’s also […]