Teaching

When’s the last time you were able to grab a great book, of your choice, and just read?  According to the National Council of Teachers of English’s most recent position statement on independent reading each and every student, regardless of grade level, needs time each day to engage with self […]

…and to move them, we’ve got to be really good at it! Let’s be clear.  We don’t run meetings.  We don’t do agendas or protocols.  We don’t direct implementation of new programs, initiatives or roll outs.  We don’t obsess over data. We facilitate people. As leaders of schools, teams and […]

By Sathya Wandzek, Director of Field Staff Collaboration When I was a teacher in the classroom, my number one goal was for students to see the why behind the math. Before teaching middle school, I literally didn’t understand the expression π r2 and always mixed it up with the other one, you […]

by Mary Korte and Ana Mettler, Jefferson County Open School Teachers The Loch at Andrews Tarn This past weekend I stood at the bottom of Andrews Glacier in Rocky Mountain National Park staring into Andrews Tarn, an aqua-marine pond filled with melting glacial ice. Though I could not see beyond the surface […]

Dear Parents, I know you have been wondering why our math does not look like your math. When you and I were kids, accurate and quick fact fluency was enough to deliver A’s on our report cards. Math has moved on: now, instead of merely memorizing multiplication tables, students are […]

How to Get Unstuck. This is one of the most important lessons we can teach in school. Because the truth is, we all get stuck, all the time. Life is like that. And when we know how to get unstuck, we can move forward. But if we get stuck and […]

As I gasped through the end of my workout recently, I reflected on the conversation I had with my coach prior to the start.  We were using kettlebells, and I was unsure of which weight to select.  His feedback to me added clarity as to the purpose of the kettlebell.  […]

It’s 7:54 am on the first day of school. I run frantically into my classroom two minutes before the students arrive. When I open the door, I find that the room is completely empty – no chairs, no tables, not even a stray paperclip on the floor. I begin to […]

I received this text message at 10:30 pm on a fall night from my freshman son at Colorado State University (CSU). In a flash, my husband and I were on the phone with Noah, who described the event as surreal. His buddies volunteered him to go out on the field […]

Santi had some cookies. His mom baked him 9 more. Now he has 16. How many cookies did Santi have to start? I recently watched some first grade mathematicians share their problem solving around this question. After some independent work time, the group gathered on the rug, and Betsy came […]

A literacy teacher shared with me about a recent reading conference with one of her second graders: the little girl sat diligently by her side, accurately pronounced aloud all the sentences across three pages of a Magic Treehouse book and then burst into tears, proclaiming loudly, “I said all the […]

In schools we have asked people to coach and mentor individuals.  We work with one person and support her growth through coaching conversations and collaboration.  We wield these skills of pausing, probing, paraphrasing. We listen and ask really effective questions.  We do this with just one person and it is […]