Video- Falling Flat on Your Face

I was reading the article Seven Reasons to “Go to the Tape” in ASCD and I decided to blog about how I positively changed my concern about being in front of the camera and what it did to improve my classroom practice. The article discusses that coaches are...

Classroom Walkthroughs: Giving Teachers Feedback

Conducting classroom walkthroughs is a useful strategy for gaining an overall picture of instruction in the building. While brief in nature, walkthrough visits yield patterns of data in terms of the instructional strategies that teachers use, levels of student...

Innovation and High-Stakes Accountability

It seems to me we have two forces shaping educational policy: one is the call to innovate, reflected in the USDOE’s Investing in Innovation (i3) grants and in calls from the US Secretary of Education to seek innovative solutions to persistent problems of student...

Reflecting on the School Year

The end of the school year is a whirlwind of activity.  As a high school principal, these things were uppermost in my mind during the last few weeks of the school year: making sure all graduation ceremony arrangements were complete and that any seniors not passing...

Intersecting Lines

It’s May in Kentucky and we are all hoping the rainy season is over. The Ohio River is finally easing back from flood stage. This is the time of year when schools are in testing and my work in schools is coming to a close. I have been doing a lot of writing lately;...