The days grow shorter, the season shifts, and we turn now towards the final months of 2015. This time of year can be both joyous and stressful for teachers and students alike—as calendars fill with everything from holiday events, to mid-term exams, to semester end projects and report cards. Emotions can run high –as the […]
Meeting the Needs of All Students The last year has brought the issues diversity, equity and cultural responsiveness into all of our lives in vivid ways. Issues of racial inequity in policing have been brought home through a series of tragic deaths captured on bystander videos. The confederate flag has been taken down from state […]
An excerpt from The 5 Dimensions of Engaged Teaching (pp. 108-110) Each student arrives in the classroom with a different personality, background, learning style, and skill level. When we take steps at the beginning of the term to intentionally gather students into a cohesive whole and give them a clear sense of purpose and direction, […]
The following is an excerpt from The 5 Dimensions of Engaged Teaching (p. 111) Cultivating our role as classroom leader involves establishing positive authority, expressing care and authenticity, making expectations and boundaries clear, and inviting students to be active participants in the creation of a vibrant learning community. Students need to feel our commitment to […]
The beginning of summer is upon us! For many, this is a time of celebration and excitement—as we watch our students transition and graduate. As we prepare to take a break from the pace and rhythm of the school year, it is easy to simply go leaping into the summer without really intentionally closing the […]
How do schools make real and lasting change that develops from the inside out? For the last 15 years, this question has been at the core of our work with schools around the country. So often after a course or a professional development experience, educators come to us saying – “We loved the work and we’ve tried […]
One of the most challenging aspects of teaching is the ongoing practice of establishing respectful boundaries while cultivating and maintaining an open heart. I am reminded of a high school teacher in a workshop in the Midwest, who, when we described the foundations of Social and Emotional Learning exclaimed—“I feel like you are trying to […]
Mindfulness is showing up everywhere I look: a segment with Anderson Cooper on 60 Minutes, cover stories in Parade Magazine, Time and Scientific American, as well as frequent stories in the New York Times. You might be wondering, what exactly is Mindfulness and how is it related to Engaged Teaching? First and foremost, mindfulness is […]
7 out of 10 teachers have a student currently in their classroom who is grieving Recently, I was working at a school that had been experiencing a tremendous amount of loss in their community—illness, the death of family members, divorce. On one of my consulting days, a 3rd grade teacher Sarah and I had planned […]
The new year can be a powerful time to intentionally address our classroom culture and “re-set” for the second semester. Part of our jobs as educators is to help students better understand their diverse identities and communities and become more comfortable and confident in interactions with others—especially those people they perceive as being different from […]
