Blog

January 16, 2020 Early Literacy Instruction As A Tool to Increase Equity

According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, more than 1 in 3 American children start Kindergarten without the skills they need to learn to read. Children introduced to reading early on tend to read earlier and are more likely to excel in school than children who are not exposed...

January 2, 2020 Growing Student Networks in Order to Expand Opportunities

A few years ago, I found myself at a luncheon with Reid Hoffman, the owner of LinkedIn, as the keynote speaker. He talked about how our education networks open so many doors for professionals in the field. As connected and constant learners, we have huge networks, meeting new people...

December 20, 2019 Debunking the Myths of High-Quality Curriculum Adoption

As a veteran educator of over 25 years, I know that curriculum can make a monumental difference for teachers and students. There have been many reports in recent years that revealed that educators are increasingly using their own instructional materials, often finding resources and lessons...

December 16, 2019 Wyoming’s Call to Action in Literacy and Reading Can Increase Student Achievement

In a recent post from the Collaborative for Student Success addressing recent NAEP results in reading and literacy, multiple organizations have issued a unified call to action for a focus in five areas: embracing the science of reading; pushing for use of high-quality, standards-aligned curriculum...

November 18, 2019 Multicultural Instruction to Increase Equity

As a veteran educator in Columbia, South Carolina, my school has invested much time and energy into raising the expectations for our students over the past several years by raising our academic standards. But that alone is not enough; equally as important to ensuring all...

November 18, 2019 Supporting High Standards through High Expectations

Today was a hard day in the classroom. I had a student tell me that he just “didn’t want to do it anymore,” that my class is “too much.” When questioned about what his comment meant, he fell into a long rant about how my...

November 7, 2019 A Whole Child Approach to College and Career Readiness through Project-Based Learning

On any given day, a visitor to my middle school science classroom would observe a variety of activities. A cursory glance around the room would reveal a board covered in post-it notes of student-generated questions, experiments and projects in various stages of completion, and groups...