Thank you! Before the holidays I posted a blog about the importance of academic tasks within classrooms. Drawing from both learning theory and research on improving instruction, I argued that there tends to be wide variation in the cognitive demand asked of students in the tasks provided by their teachers. To quote that blog: [...]
Good evening. I hope that the weather isn’t going to be too disruptive to your plans over the next few days. I’m kind of hoping we get trapped in the house for a couple of days, to be honest. I could use the time. A lot’s been going on recently. I wrote the Letter [...]
Hello, I hope this finds you well. I have had the privilege of having some very challenging conversations recently, employing the adjective "challenging" in several ways. Some have been cognitively challenging, some emotionally taxing, and some have involved difficult topics. Here I just want to register that we (at the Center) have lots of [...]
Happy New Year! As I wrote in CL #20, this time last year, I am not a huge fan of New Year’s resolutions. I know there are studies that show the percentages of people who give up on their resolutions by mid-February. I should probably go track down a couple for maximum intellectual integrity, [...]
Hi, I hope you’re well. My dad was supposed to get here yesterday, but he missed his connection because his flight was late leaving Edinburgh, so he is stuck in Dublin for the weekend. Aer Lingus doesn’t fly to Hartford every day. So I find myself with a little more time on my hands [...]
Good evening! I think a lot about what to write in these Coaching Letters, and I sometimes have whole sequences laid out. You will not be surprised to know that these plans infrequently come to fruition. This has been an intense week and I’m just on day four. And it has been a great [...]
I live a privileged professional life. Each year, I am invited to visit dozens of school districts and spend time in hundreds of classrooms kneeling next to students aged 4 to 20. Whether through the formal process of Instructional Rounds or more casually dropping into classrooms, I am typically working with teachers and administrators [...]
Good evening, I hope you’re well. I got some feedback that Coaching Letter #60 before Thanksgiving was a little "preachy", so this is my attempt to make the same message more palatable. Try reading this Harvard Business Review article by Mark Bonchek (and if you like it, you can click on his name to [...]
Good afternoon! I’ve had a busy week and I’m a little sick, so this letter is a little punchier than usual. I have been reading Made to Stick, which is the first of the uber-successful books by the Heath Brothers. (The Heath Brothers are just too good to be true—I can’t stand them. But [...]
Over the last few years, the Center has cherished the opportunity to bring various educational leaders—superintendents, school administrators, students, teachers, community members, elected officials--into conversations and professional learning experiences about equitable leadership. In these sessions, we regularly create moments where leaders can distill for themselves the most salient ideas. Over the last month, in [...]