Ms. Conner guarded the door, which was ajar, so seven-year-old Mark would feel safe changing his rain-soaked clothes. As Ms. Conner discretely ensured Mark’s privacy, she pondered his destructive tendencies and realized that they were his way of expressing and releasing emotional turmoil. Now his stress and grief were manifesting as a fear of being alone, even for…
Do you want better relationships with students’ families? Effective communication is always vital to building relationships and engagement, but this school year’s anomalies intensify the need. Use this guide to hone your communication technique this year and beyond. Keep It Short and Simple (KISS) School emails are for information, not pleasure reading. Simple language…
Covid-19 Puts a Strain on an Already Scarce Resource – Time Every instructional minute is precious. You have diverse learners needing to learn a lot of material in a short time. Hybrid and remote learning has amplified the challenge of optimizing instructional time. Routines such as taking attendance, cleaning, and checking for understanding take a…
The Relationship of Emotions and Academics “Jesse” got in a car accident on the way to a job interview. He was not physically hurt, but he felt emotionally shaken. Upon arrival, Jesse snapped at the secretary. During the interview, he struggled to retrieve words. These behaviors were uncharacteristic for him and yet, consistent with the…
What It Is: As educators, we always strive to help our students succeed. Sometimes this means implementing Response to Intervention (RTI), or more recently, Multi-Tier System of Supports (MTSS) in the classroom as a way to intervene to support struggling students. While RTI focuses primarily on academic instruction, intervention, and assessments based on progress-monitoring and…
What It Is: With the article “Inside the Black Box,” originally published in 1998, an educational practice known as Assessment for Learning (AFL) has gained much notoriety. Having been called “one of the most important instructional strategies ever studied,” Assessment for Learning is focused on the use of scaffolded learning targets written in student-friendly language and activities that are intended to…
What It Is: Five years ago, very few educators had even heard the term “Data-Driven Decision Making.” Today, very few have not. DDDM, or “informed instruction,” is the practice of using real-time assessment data to inform teachers’ instruction. By frequently looking at data, educators can know exactly which students are struggling/succeeding and which standards/skills they…
What They Are: Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) are educational environments in which teachers work together as a team. They hold each other accountable and focus more on learning and less on teaching (“Are my students doing a good job of learning standards?” vs. “Am I doing a good job of teaching the standards?”). This team approach fosters collaboration among educators,…
What They Are Formative assessments are frequently assigned activities (not necessarily test, exams or quizzes) given throughout a lesson or unit that provide teachers with measures of student progress. “Common” assessments refer to those given by every teacher on a particular team or grade level. Common formative assessments provide a true “apples-to-apples” comparison among classes and students that can stimulate…
What They Are: Most states have hundreds of learning standards and many more subsets of those standards. Educators can’t (and shouldn’t) teach them all in great depth. So, the process of identifying those standards that are most important is critical to helping teachers focus their instruction. How eDoctrina Helps: eDoctrina’s Power Standards tool (which is pre-loaded and…
