I’ve mentioned the term “self-efficacy” a couple of times, so here’s what the major researcher on the concept, Albert Bandura, says about it. This is a more recent reference (Bandura 1994) but he’s been writing on this topic for more than thirty years. I think this is very important, and is a description of [...]
We went to another elementary today. Me, Kelly, five principals and the superintendent. This time, we went to a variety of classrooms, using the same protocol as last time to talk about what we saw in classrooms. We saw some good stuff.
The purpose of doing these learning walks is to provide principals with the opportunity [...]
I went to the CASE winter conference last week. I’ve only been to CASE a couple of times, once to hear Meg Wheatley speak, and then this most recent one. I’m not as well connected as I should be.
Anyway, this time I went because I wanted to hear Richard Elmore speak. I think he’s [...]
I had a meeting with our high school department chairs (whom I like more and more the better I get to know them) and I wanted to share with them some parts of Inside the Black Box, but I totally lost my place. So here’s what I wanted to say, better composed. (Those of you [...]
I am not kidding when I tell you that I think ALL THE TIME about how to create the common vision of good instruction that is:
advocated by Marzano and Waters in their work on school districts (see my post on School Leadership that Works for more details and links)
advocated in Change Leadership, among many other [...]
I went skiing over the weekend. It was warm and it didn’t look like it had snowed for a few days. It was beautiful, but there was a lot of ice. Towards the end of the day, I was tired, crossed tips on an icy patch, and I went down. And down. I don’t [...]
We went on our first learning walk today. Five principals and I visited six classrooms and looked for three things:
clarity of target: what evidence could we find not only that the teacher was clear on the learning objective, but also that the students were?
formative assessment as a regular part of classroom instruction: what strategies was [...]
I’ve already written about the work of Tim Waters and Bob Marzano and their analysis of what makes some school districts more successful than others.
All that they talk about in terms of creating a school district with high quality instruction that varies little within and across schools is not possible without a common vision for [...]
One of the great unexpected benefits of having children is finding out how many great animated movies there are. One of my goals is to write about them all. Well, not really, but many are worth writing about.
My latest favorite is Kung Fu Panda. When I started writing this, I was planning on not giving [...]
