By: Shauna Brown Leung One of the challenges common to all teachers focused on increasing rigor in the classroom is getting students to master the vocabulary of the content. Teachers throughout the country tackle this feat by giving students lists of “key terms” to define for each unit. Some require flash cards, others ask students [...]
By: Kenyatta Dorey Graves I was once asked to provide professional development training for a large, urban school district in the south newly ignited by the pressures of urgent, immediate reform. Prior to the start of my workshop, the Superintendent of the district arrived and decided to offer what we’ll today call “motivation” for the [...]
by: Denise Malone Several years ago I reluctantly agreed to be part of a Career Day celebration at a boarding academy. On my way to the school, I was flanked by professionals who enthusiastically talked about what they were going to share with the students. I listened attentively and thought to myself, “Their jobs sound [...]
By:Robyn R. Jackson One Thanksgiving my father’s entire family gathered at my great uncle’s house for dinner — all seventy of us. We had a ball from the oldest (91) to the youngest (4 months). After dinner, I was standing near the pool table talking to one of my uncles when one of my littlest cousins, aged 2, [...]
Whenever we deliver a rigor workshop, one of the first questions we get is “What is rigor?” While everyone agrees that rigorous instruction is important, few agree on what rigor is. In most cases, educators believe that they know rigor when they see it without really having a fully defined idea of what it looks [...]
Because our professional development at Mindsteps™ is fully customizable, how schools implement our work looks different from school to school. While the concepts and principles are the same, how each gets implemented is highly individual to each teacher. Here is how one school has used our workshops and materials on rigorous instruction* to create a school-wide focus [...]
Just the other day I was helping a group of teachers plan rigorous units. As we were creating essential questions and thinking through the standards, I asked what I thought was a simple question: Why are you teaching this? The teachers were stumped. They had no idea why it was important that students learn the [...]
From time to time we come across a resource we find really useful. Our colleague Dr. Shawn Joseph recently wrote a wonderful book, The Principal’s Guide to the First 100 Days of the School Year: Creating Instructional Momentum that is chock full of helpful tips and strategies for new, veteran, and aspiring principals. Here’s an excerpt: [...]
Every year, we spend time at Mindsteps™ conducting student focus groups with the schools we serve on an ongoing basis. We conduct these focus groups to find out if the work we are doing with teachers and administrators is really making a difference where it counts – with the students. Every year, I am surprised [...]
Each of us has preferences that are dictated by our culture, our experiences, and our own perceived strengths and weaknesses. Perhaps you prefer quiet dinners at home because you survived rowdy dinners with five rambunctious brothers growing up. Maybe you would rather read the book than watch the movie because you have always had a [...]
