Archive for January, 2010

It took me about 3 months to truly figure out how conversations work here and to feel like I understood the norms of the Verse. The effort was worth it times ten, though….It’s where I turn first for professional growth and learning now!

By Merrilee Henk, WTWL Writer Merrilee Henk is a teacher and life long learner. She has a background in psychology and emotional and behavioral disabilities. […]

Christian Borstlap recently finished these deliciously simple animated illustrations for Dutch children’s charity, Kinderpostzegels.

Paul Postma did a great job of bringing Christian’s colorful illustrations to life, complimenting them with a playfully restrained animation style to really let their personalities shine.

A Chapter Club Annotation

New research is proving that gender differences are real. Boys and girls are different. From the way their brains are organized to the types of cells in their eyes, groundbreaking studies are showing us just how different the genders really are. In this article, Chris Wondra explains how boys and girls hear differently, and what this means for the way our children and students learn to speak and read.

“You must learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t possibly live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Question: Is this kind of presentation even that paradigm shifting anymore? Personally, I’m ready to move past this visionary type of discussion and into one […]

Try something different. If it turns out to be a mistake then you’ve learned something, so it isn’t really a mistake.

Elizabeth Gilbert, author of, Eat, Pray, Love, muses on the impossible things we expect from artists and geniuses — and shares the radical idea that, instead of the rare person “being” a genius, all of us “have” a genius. A bit “out there” in the context of traditional teaching and learning. But still–thought provoking, funny, personal and surprisingly moving.

Teachers in every district face the frustrations of working under poor leadership, as well as the satisfaction and personal growth that can be realized when working for exceptional leaders. The choice of leadership style and reform model becomes critical to the success of an educational organization in need of reform. Transactional leadership, shared governance, and transformational leadership are some leadership styles that can affect the success of the reform model used by the district leader to initiate change.