Five Ways to Prepare for Summer 2020

Before the end of the spring term, each student needs a very few - 3 to 5 - summer learning targets, with an emphasis on literacy and math. These should be achievable and grade-level appropriate, everything from learning the sounds of the letters of the alphabet to interviewing a neighbor or relative at a safe distance or over the phone and writing about them.

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You Can’t Do Everything

This is truly an unprecedented time in American educational history. I have been honored to continue relationships with schools across the country, albeit remotely, and am humbled by their leaders’ and faculties’ dedication to making this time as normal and productive as possible for their students

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Three Ways to Navigate the Challenges of Online Learning

Many teachers are expert users of technology, so the focus on tech-based delivery is not too difficult for them. But some of their colleagues ­– and many of their students – are overwhelmed. In almost every school district, even those that have had one-to-one computer availability, a significant number of families have not had computers or internet access.

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What Does Effective Collaboration Look Like?

This week I was asked by an educator, “What does collaboration look like?” It’s a profound question, because the answer is much deeper than educators and administrators sitting around a table and being pleasant to one another. Collaboration is hard work and often requires a level of vulnerability that does not come easily to many faculty members.

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LeadershipDouglas Reeves
The Dangers of Screen Time . . . in 1440

We've all heard about the dangers of excessive screen time. Students with more than five hours a day of screen time show decreased levels of concentration and empathy. This is especially true of those screen functions that require no engagement or interaction by the student with the media, but simply allow their bodies and minds to become sedentary wastelands.

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Why Standards?

If you ask colleagues why we have academic content and performance standards today, they are likely to reply with a curse aimed in the general direction of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. But there is a bit of history before the 21st century, and it is important to bear this history in mind when considering the advantages and disadvantages of standards.

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InstructionDouglas Reeves
The Research Paradox: Too Much and Too Little

In a brilliant post, Johns Hopkins University researcher Robert Slavin pushes back on a number of contemporary claims about educational research. The essence of the argument is that, thanks to the research frameworks of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), abundant research suggests strong and moderate effects on student achievement of several educational interventions.

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Douglas Reeves
Getting the Most Out of Coaching

Coaching is an increasingly common method used by educational systems to improve performance. Instructional coaching, leadership coaching, and executive coaching consume extraordinary amounts of time and resources, but there is wide variation in the results they achieve. Indeed, there is wide variation in the definition of what the coaching relationship is all about. Here are five guidelines to maximize the return on your investment of time and resources in coaching.

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LeadershipDouglas Reeves
Five Ways to Improve Creativity in Schools

Since the 1990’s, educators have been implored to pay attention to “21st Century Skills,” with creativity at the top of the list. A survey of Global 1500 CEO’s put creativity as the most desired skill in hiring new employees. A growing number of vision and mission statements for schools and districts include an elegy to creativity. But for all the hype about how important creativity is, the reality is that many schools not only fail to encourage creativity, but undermine it.

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