Spiderweb Discussions
Recently I had the opportunity to hear Alexis Wiggins talk about Spider Web Discussions, a topic I had never even heard of before. I was immediately hooked on this mindset…
Lessons Learned in the Hospital
I write this during a rare moment of calmness on the 10th day of being at Children’s Hospital in Madison with my 11 year old son, Nathan. This crazy journey…
Leading as a Reading Principal
This summer, I've joined other educators in reading the book Becoming a Literacy Leader by Jennifer Allen and have been learning from the others reading this book in their blog post contributions…
How does the leader model risk taking? #askanadmin
One of my good principal friends, Amber Teamann, started a blog series this July called #askanadmin. In this series of posts this summer, you'll find answers from oustanding practicing school…
Getting into Classrooms with a Coach Approach
This post first appeared in Education Week’s Finding Common Ground. Finding Common Ground, a blog run by Peter DeWitt for Education Week has been one of my favorites to read,…
Promoting College Awareness in the Elementary with March Madness
Each year in our school we use a week of NCAA March Madness to promote colleges. For several years now, during this week, teachers are allowed to wear jeans (always…
Introducing “The Coach Approach”
Never in my life did I ever aspire to be a principal...until I became one! My first year out of the classroom was to serve as an Instructional Coach. I…
Hang In With Challenging Students
This is one of several posts that I have to reflect on and share my learning from the sessions I attended at the ASCD #Empower17 conference. I have never heard…
Disrupting Poverty in School
This is one of several posts that I have to reflect on and share my learning from the sessions I attended at the ASCD #Empower17 conference. One of the sessions…
Visible Learning for Literacy #empower17
This is one of several posts that I have to reflect on and share my learning from the sessions I attended at the ASCD #Empower17 conference. I am a huge…