Educators

Emily Davis, ASCD Emerging Leader, is the New Teacher Center Program Director, Santa Cruz/Silicon Valley New Teacher Project. Davis is also the author of Making Mentoring Work. Davis stalks about her work and the topics currently driving education. Summary of Making Mentoring Work (published by Rowman and Littlefield): Making Mentoring Work is a practical guide for school leaders interested in beginning or enhancing their mentoring programs for new teachers. Readers can use the mentoring program rubric to pre-assess their program and then choose the chapters that correspond to areas of growth. Each chapter provides background research as well as practical steps and tools to make mentoring work in a school environment. At the end of each section, readers will find discussion guides that support program leaders in making the next steps; organizing conversations with stakeholders that will transform and streamline new teacher support programs; and increase new teacher retention and practice.

P ete Hall, ASCD Faculty member and author, talks about the role reflection plays in ones’ professional development and effectiveness in the classroom. Hall also reminisces about his path from educator to award winning administrator and the impact those experiences have had on his current efforts to support the field.Hall is the former principal of Shaw Middle School, a Title I school in Spokane (Washington) Public Schools. After a teaching career that spanned three states and included primary, intermediate, and middle school positions, Hall served as principal of Anderson Elementary School in Reno, Nevada.When he took over Anderson Elementary in 2002, it was one of the only schools in Nevada to have failed to make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) for four consecutive years. Two short years later, it was the only Title I school in the state of Nevada to earn a “high-achieving” designation.Hall teaches the capacity-building model of professional development. This emphasizes three things― identifying teachers’ strengths, maximizing their potential, and building their capacity―as a gateway to enhanced student achievement.Hall’s ASCD books, both co-authored with Alisa Simeral, are: Building Teachers’ Capacity for Success: A Collaborative Approach for Coaches and School Leaders (2008) and Teach, Reflect, Learn: Building Your Capacity for Success in the Classroom, released in April 2015.

Photo credit: U.S. Department of Agricultureby Stephen E. Bradforth, Emily R. Miller, William R. Dichtel, Adam K. Leibovich, Andrew L. Feig, James D. Martin, Karen S. Bjorkman, Zachary D. Schultz & Tobin L. SmithIt is time to use evidence-based teaching practices at all levels by providing incentives and effective evaluations, urge Stephen E. Bradforth, Emily R. Miller and colleagues.Read the rest of the story at Nature. 

Andy Newell, Managing Director at IRIS Connect, joined Dr. Berger to discuss the company’s new offices, expansion in the U.S. and how they help teachers take control of their own development. IRIS Connect has a long history of integrating technology into schools and districts helping to facilitate professional growth and most importantly through trust and teacher-controlled mechanisms. Using IRIS Connect, one can record lessons using easy to use video technology, reflect on their videos privately, share with colleagues, and collaborate with the IRIS Connect global community of teachers, any time anywhere.By enabling PD experiences at every stage of the Joyce and Showers framework IRIS Connect enables the personalized, contextualized interactions shown to make a real difference to teaching and learning. Learn more below:A Giant Leap for Teacher Collaboration   

Photo Credit: Susan AdamsOne Stanford student thought “paid vacation” meant that her boss would pay for all her travel and leisure activities. Another didn’t know there was such a thing as a water bill, and a third threatened to call the police and report the work study office because it was letting the government withhold money from her paycheck.Read the rest of the story at Forbes.

by Richard D. KahlenbergTeacher tenure rights, first established more than a century ago, are under unprecedented attack. Tenure—which was enacted to protect students’ education and those who provide it—is under assault from coast to coast, in state legislatures, in state courtrooms, and in the media.In June 2014, in the case of Vergara v. California, a state court judge struck down teacher tenure and seniority laws as a violation of the state’s constitution.* Former CNN and NBC journalist Campbell Brown has championed a copycat case, Wright v. New York, challenging the Empire State’s tenure law (which was consolidated with another New York case challenging tenure, Davids v. New York). Similar cases are reportedly in the works in several other states.Read the rest of the story at AFT.

Dr. Robyn Jackson, nationally accredited educator, ASCD author and CEO of Mindsteps discusses her experiences and how hard we should work in today’s educational landscape.

Authors of the best-selling ASCD book Building Teachers’ Capacity for Success talk to Dr. Berger about why your effectiveness in the classroom is directly connected to your ability to self-reflect on your teaching practice and use the reflection process to get better at what you do. Pete Hall and Alisa Simeral discuss tools and strategies, from their latest book Teach, Reflect, Learn: Building Your Capacity for Success in the Classroom, to reveal deeper understandings of your practice and increase your power to make purposeful improvements. Their path forward includes:A short self-assessment to gauge your current self-reflective tendencies and provide a launching point for personal growth.Prompts and strategies to spur your development in the art and skill of self-reflection.Insights into the four stages that compose the continuum of self-reflection and how each stage contributes to your overall improvement.Goals and road maps for developing self-reflective tendencies, accuracy, and behavior.   

Author and educator David Greene talks about the state of education in the U.S.  Greene discusses several topics, including standardized testing, Common Core, the teaching profession and more.  Greene is a program consultant for WISE Services, a former teacher and coach for 38 years, the author of “Doing the Right Thing: A Teacher Speaks” and treasurer of the organization “Save Our Schools.”