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Peter Beens

Teacher Magazine: Stepping Aside: The Art of Working With Student-Teachers - 1 views

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    Stepping Aside: The Art of Working With Student-Teachers\n\nTeacher Leaders Network Although traditional teacher-education programs rely on veteran educators to invite student- or "practice-" teachers into their classrooms, many skilled professionals can be heard expressing some reluctance about sharing instructional responsibilities with green recruits. They may be concerned about their ability to mentor an inexperienced colleague effectively, or simply hesitant to relinquish control of instruction in an atmosphere of high-stakes accountability.\n\nIn a recent post to the Teacher Leaders Network Forum daily discussion group, veteran teacher Vicky expressed some reservations of her own about working with a student-teacher and asked for help.\n\nI may be getting the opportunity to work with a student-teacher. I was wondering about your ideas for starting the year off right, helping the student-teacher, and balancing the load of mentoring the student teacher and teaching the students myself. I'm excited about the possibility, but I'm also a pretty hands-on control freak kind of person, so I want to alternately challenge and excite the intern but not be unfair or scary. Tips?\n\nNancy, a veteran K-12 music teacher, replied:\n\nGreat questions, Vicky. My first suggestion would be adopting the perspective that you will learn as much as the novice teacher-about yourself, your beliefs, and your practice. The first step is probably building a relationship in which the novice teacher trusts you enough to share real information and opinion (and vice-versa).\n\nCreate a safe space to communicate honestly, in both directions. A student teacher who feels comfortable enough to share fears, anxieties, confusion, and frustration-and knows that he or she is not being judged, but honored as a learner by a veteran teacher who also has fears and frustrations-will be a student teacher who can grow.\n\nMy second thought is that from your students' perspective there should be two experts
Martin Burrett

Stemming the Flow of Teachers Leaving the Profession - 11 views

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    "Much attention has been given to the reasons why so many teachers leave the profession. Workload, lack of independence, and bullying from senior 'leaders' and other issues are cited as reasons why lots of teachers will not see their 5th year in the classroom. While some of these are difficult to mitigate for individuals, there are practical things that schools and teachers can do to help teachers with all of these pressures and create a supportive culture to stem the flow of good teachers leaving the profession."
Misha Miller

Using Groups Effectively: 10 Principles » Edurati Review - 50 views

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    "Conversation is key . Sawyer succinctly explains this principle: "Conversation leads to flow, and flow leads to creativity." When having students work in groups, consider what will spark rich conversation. The original researcher on flow, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, found that rich conversation precedes and ignites flow more than any other activity.1 Tasks that require (or force) interaction lead to richer collaborative conceptualization. Set a clear but open-ended goal . Groups produce the richest ideas when they have a goal that will focus their interaction but also has fluid enough boundaries to allow for creativity. This is a challenge we often overlook. As teachers, we often have an idea of what a group's final product should look like (or sound like, or…). If we put students into groups to produce a predetermined outcome, we prevent creative thinking from finding an entry point. Try not announcing time limits. As teachers we often use a time limit as a "motivator" that we hope will keep group work focused. In reality, this may be a major detractor from quality group work. Deadlines, according to Sawyer, tend to impede flow and produce lower quality results. Groups produce their best work in low-pressure situations. Without a need to "keep one eye on the clock," the group's focus can be fully given to the task. Do not appoint a group "leader." In research studies, supervisors, or group leaders, tend to subvert flow unless they participate as an equal, listening and allowing the group's thoughts and decisions to guide the interaction. Keep it small. Groups with the minimum number of members that are needed to accomplish a task are more efficient and effective. Consider weaving together individual and group work. For additive tasks-tasks in whicha group is expectedtoproduce a list, adding one idea to another-research suggests that better results develop
Dr. Combs

Research | Teachers Network: Effective Teachers - 63 views

  • Teachers whose students make the greatest achievement gains have extensive preparation and experience relevant to their current assignment (subject, grade level, and student population taught). Opportunities to work with like-minded, similarly accomplished colleagues – and to build and share collective expertise – are also strongly associated with effective teaching. Accomplished teachers who have opportunities to share their expertise — and serve as leaders (as coaches, mentors, teacher educator, etc.) — are more likely to remain in the profession. To teach effectively, teachers must have access to the people, resources, and policies that support their work in the classroom. This includes: (1) principals who cultivate and embrace teacher leadership; (2) time and tools for teachers to learn from each other, (3) opportunities for teachers to connect and work with community organizations and agencies that support students and their families outside the school walls; (4) evaluation systems that comprehensively measure the impact of teachers on student learning, (5) performance pay systems that primarily reward the spread of teaching expertise and spur collaboration among teachers.
  • A Better System for Schools: Developing, Supporting and Retaining Effective  Teachers
Peter Beens

PIPEDREAMS - Seeing with New Eyes - International Perspectives on Trust and Regulation ... - 16 views

  • This year, I was asked to attend as a Canadian Teacher Representative, along with Ontario Ministry Officer, Colette Ruduck and our Ontario Deputy Minister of Education, George Zegarac.
  • the theme of “Trust and Regulation”
  • my Canadian values of equality, diversity, safety and choice
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  • high degree of trust for teachers, administrators and district decision makers
  • Our regulations are meant to encourage equality and diversity, choice, opportunity, innovation – fundamental values in our society.
  • In contrast to many of the other countries represented, our Canadian context was unique in that the regulations (organizations, federations, policies, curriculum) imposed actually tie in Trust and Relationship building and partnerships as key factors to increase capacity building with a wide range of stakeholders.
  • We need our profession to be respected, which includes paying us well, treating us fairly, supporting us with resources, nurturing our learning and leadership opportunities
  • systems of education can achieve and can be highly ranked without the use of formalized testing
  • We need to feel safe to make mistakes because we too are learners, especially in a profession that is changing so drastically in the 21st Century
  • We need to feel trusted and with that, we want our skills, our education, our talents and our passions to be respected so we -together – can become the creators of our own pedagogies
  • these passionate and experienced leaders agreed that such tests don’t work when used to rate, or punish teachers
  • can even sometimes do more harm then good
  • such tests are not always authentic
  • First and foremost, teacher voice needs to be heard and respected
  • As principals, we need to empower our teachers and community
  • the importance of the teacher/principal relationship came up over and over and over
  • Trust – allows me to teach in my style, developing my own curriculum
  • I wonder if there is a correlation between that supportive, trusting principal and the fact that we have incredibly dynamic teachers here, at Van Leer from all over the globe
  • We too need to think different because change can start with us
  • We need to make our voices heard by be socially active
  • By sharing and reflecting our learning openly and even by sometimes being vulnerable and asking for help and challenging the status quo
  • we need to recognize that our learning environments are changing and are very different from how we were once trained and educated
  • We need to remind our leaders that we are not just teachers of academics but we teach the whole person
  • Many of us struggle, without supports – to help impoverished families, students with mental health disabilities, learning disabilities, students that speak a different language, large class sizes, violence, inequalities
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    The conference in Jerusalem, Israel that Van Leer hosts each year  is intended to encourage professional dialogue among educators, academics, representatives of the Third Sector, and policymakers from diverse areas and places in Israel and abroad.    This year, I was asked to attend as a Canadian Teacher Representative, along with Ontario Ministry Officer, Colette Ruduck and our Ontario Deputy Minister of Education, George Zegarac. With the theme of "Trust and Regulation" at the center of our discussions, it did not take long to realize that my context, as a Canadian Educator, a parent, and a student -  was one of privilege and opportunity.
Peter Beens

10 (more) ways for teachers to learn… « What Ed Said - 2 views

  • Engage with teachers from different places and cultures.
  • Interact with teachers who teach other disciplines and different age groups
  • Get out of school!
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  • Visit another school
  • Watch other teachers teach or present
  • Tweet from a conference
  • Interact with other people who share your passion
  • Reflect on your own learning
  • Teach teachers
  • Be open-minded
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    You can't be a teacher, if you are not a learner. This week, I'm fortunate to be at an IB workshop in Chiang Mai, Thailand, training to be an IB workshop leader. Reflecting at the end of the first day, I have some ideas to add my list of ways teachers can learn…
Clint Heitz

10 Things School Leaders Do to Kill a Teacher's Enthusiasm for Technology - 115 views

  • 9. Fail to provide training and additional resources needed for tech implementation. Training with an expert user is always a plus, even when using someone on staff as that expert. Even more important is providing time for the teacher to explore, experiment, and "play" with the technology. As far as resources, school leaders need to make sure teachers have all they need to implement new technologies: everything from powerbars to tables. Nothing can be more frustrating than having your greatest tech plans foiled by a lack of power outlets.
    • Clint Heitz
       
      Very true! Research has shown that the most successful technology interests are those that have proper support and professional development.
  • 5. Fail to provide adequate hardware and/or software.  I've seen so many examples of this over the years. Teachers are encouraged to get students writing and engaging in online blogging, but they don't have access to computers. Another example is even more ludicrous; students being asked to create 21st century projects yet they aren't given anything but 20th century tools such a colored pencils and construction paper. It is the school leader's responsibility to ensure teachers have adequate hardware and software for implementing technology.             
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    • Clint Heitz
       
      So difficult to be innovative and relevant when using outdated tools and materials that can't even support the tools we want to use.
  • While school districts are obligated under CIPA and common sense to provide some level of protection for young students, a filtering system is inadequate or faulty when it dictates what teachers can and can't do with the technology.
    • Clint Heitz
       
      This is especially difficult when only one person holds the key to the access. School leaders (i.e. principals) should be just as able to unblock access as the IT department.
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    "10 Things School Leaders Do to Kill a Teacher's Enthusiasm for Technology" from Tech & Learning
Wayne Holly

Why the weak students end up as teachers: Education programs lack intellect. - CSMonito... - 205 views

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    Education courses don't challenge students' intellect as others do . . .
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    I don't know many teachers that thought their teacher education program was worth their time, so I would totally disagree with this -- weak students end up as teachers. I once had a teacher educator tell me that 'grades' were the most significant indicator of a good teacher. I laughed at her because I won the top teaching award and a year earlier I wouldn't have been accepted because my grades wouldn't have made their particular cut.
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    I have to agree with Lori. I have several colleagues who were not admitted into teacher education programs, yet have become amazing instructional leaders. Granted, there has to be a cutoff for programs, but frankly, grades are indeed not the best indicator. I was not allowed to take an advance-level French course because of my overall GPA during my undergraduate education. Later as a high school French teacher, my students consistently placed out of university language requirements, and while with me, often placed in declamation contests for their spoken abilities. Our teacher educations programs still need work. They are not where we want them to be. Now to get to work on how to make that happen! :-)
Daryl Bambic

Be the Change. Listen. Follow-up » Edurati Review - 42 views

  • 1. Be the change. Leaders of professional development seem to forget that they’re actually teaching, and that part of teaching is modeling the activity you hope to see adopted. A session devoted to equipping teachers to implement more collaborative learning that is presented via “death by PowerPoint” is an oxymoron, a term originating from a Greek word appropriately meaning “pointedly foolish.” As one teacher recently expressed it, “Why does the worst teaching often happen in sessions on how to improve teaching?” Why, indeed? Modeling is a powerful teaching technique. In addition to communicating that the suggested new approach promotes learning, demonstration taps into some of the brain’s natural learning systems: This may be because demonstration actually encourages the brain to engage. Specialized neurons known as mirror neurons make practicing “in the head” possible…When a teacher repeatedly performs a sequence of steps, her students’ mirror neurons may enable their own preliminary practice of the same steps. In other words, as a teacher demonstrates a skill, students mentally rehearse it.1
  • Though we’ve been invited to lead professional development, we do not have all the answers. Professional development involves merging new research findings with current personnel—i.e., bringing ideas and people together. One way I’ve tried to do more of this recently is to ask teachers if any of them have tried something similar to a new approach I’ve explained. If any have, I invite them to share their experience. This invites elaboration, a critical cognitive process for constructing understanding. If the teacher’s experience was positive, we discuss why the approach was successful. If the teacher’s experience was frustrating, we often find together the reason for it and develop a plan for structuring it better the next time. This give-and-take values everyone, respects the experience present in the session, and allows the leader to be a colleague rather than an aloof expert.
  • 2. Listen. I have a tendency to get preoccupied with my preparation and forget that I’ll actually have people in the professional development session. Not just people but colleagues!
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  • 3. Follow up. I’ve written previously about the importance of coaching and the characteristics of an effective coach. A one-time information flood is ineffective, no matter how engaging the session’s leader may be. Teachers need support as they begin to implement new ideas, methods, and approaches. Note that support, not judgement, is needed. Showing up with an evaluation form is a certain way to kill any benefit professional development might yield. Teachers are learners, and we need the time and space to try, to reflect, to try again, to get helpful feedback, and to truly master implementation. We need the opportunity to learn. Coaching provides this opportunity, along with the encouragement and feedback necessary for success.
Matt Renwick

Education Week: School Leaders: Don't Let Your Teachers Lose Heart - 51 views

  • Survey teachers. In the spring, as you consider programs for the following year (or years), send out a survey to teachers asking them to rate the areas where they need help. Pick your programs accordingly. You won't please everyone, but this is a chance to address your teachers' real concerns.
    • Matt Renwick
       
      I like this idea. It will help set our goals for the next three years.
  • Take something off the table. Teachers are being asked to do more without letting go of something else. Surprise your teachers before school next year and strike a program that was assessed to be ineffective. Your teachers will love you for easing their load.
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    • Matt Renwick
       
      What would we take off?
Brianna Crowley

Home - 4 views

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    This website discusses the standards of effective teacher leadership. It also outlines and defines the role of a teacher leader. Progressive perspective on the teaching profession and its potential future of differentiated pathways. 
clconzen

School Leaders: Guiding Teachers into the Digital Age | Edutopia - 3 views

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    School Leaders: Guiding Teachers into the Digital Age
Marge Runkle

Dangerously Irrelevant: Top posts - 1 views

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    Scott McLeod - Ruminations on technology, leadership, and the future of our schools. academia, academic, administration, administrator, administrators, assistant principals, CASTLE, college, colleges, district, districts, edublog, edublogosphere, edublogs, education, educational administration, educational leadership, educational technology, educational technology leadership, higher education, leaders, leadership, leadership development, leadership preparation, leadership training, learners, learning, McLeod, postsecondary, principal, principals, professional development, school, school administration, school administrator, school administrators, school districts, school leaders, school principals, school superintendents, schools, Scott McLeod, scottmcleod, staff development, student, students, superintendent, superintendents, teacher, teachers, teaching, technology, technology coordinators, technology integration, technology leadership, training, UCEA, universities, university
Martin Burrett

EdTech Lunch with @ICTMagic highlights way to get rid of needless school e-mails - 5 views

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    "In the first of a series of 5 webinars, Martin Burrett (@ICTMagic) showcased innovative ways that school leaders and teachers can eliminate the bulk of e-mails out of their school lives. Using online, collaborative communication tools, teachers and school leaders can easily send messages to each other, with fantastic tools that allow users to 'turn off notifications', or turning on 'snooze mode'. Such features help in that messages only arrive when the user specifies, therefore eliminating the need to deal with e-mails when they arrive at a time when individuals should be resting."
Rose Whittingham

EDED20474_2131: Academic perspectives on quality teachers and teaching - 51 views

    • Rose Whittingham
       
      This is brilliant and true. I pariticularly am witness to this, not only in my own professional practice (going from observations as a beginning teacher and then having a classroom "to myself" to a school where I had TAs in my class which changed the dynamic and in that school there was an 'open door policy' where you could expect admin to stroll through.  And now I am in PD for other staff with IT I find it hard to get my foot through their classroom doors. There is resistance to share short comings for sure! 
  • Teachers are among the most powerful influences in learning. Teachers need to be directive, influential, caring, and actively engaged in the passion of teaching and learning. Teachers need to be aware of what each and every student is thinking and knowing to construct meaning and meaningful experiences in light of this knowledge, and have proficient knowledge and understanding of their content to provide meaningful and appropriate feedback such that each student moves progressively through the curriculum levels. Teachers need to know the learning intentions and success criteria of their lessons, know how well they are attaining these criteria for all students, and know where to go next in light of the gap between students’ current knowledge and understanding and the success criteria of: “Where are you going?”, “How are you going?”, and “Where to next?”. Teachers need to move from the single idea to multiple ideas, and to relate and then extend these ideas such that learners construct and reconstruct knowledge and ideas. It is not the knowledge or ideas, but the learner’s construction of this knowledge and these ideas that is critical. School leaders and teachers need to create school, staffroom, and classroom environments where error is welcomed as a learning opportunity, where discarding incorrect knowledge and understanding is welcomed, and where participants can feel safe to learn, re-learn, and explore knowledge and understanding (Hattie, 2009, pp. 238-239).
Mr. Eason

Educational Leadership:Teaching for the 21st Century:21st Century Skills: The Challenge... - 119 views

  • the skills students need in the 21st century are not new.
  • Critical thinking and problem solving, for example, have been components of human progress throughout history
  • What's actually new is the extent to which changes in our economy and the world mean that collective and individual success depends on having such skills
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  • Many reform efforts, from reducing class size to improving reading instruction, have devolved into fads or been implemented with weak fidelity to their core intent. The 21st century skills movement faces the same risk.
  • some of the rhetoric we have heard surrounding this movement suggests that with so much new knowledge being created, content no longer matters; that ways of knowing information are now much more important than information itself. Such notions contradict what we know about teaching and learning and raise concerns that the 21st century skills movement will end up being a weak intervention for the very students—low-income students and students of color—who most need powerful schools as a matter of social equity.
  • First, educators and policymakers must ensure that the instructional program is complete and that content is not shortchanged for an ephemeral pursuit of skills
  • Second, states, school districts, and schools need to revamp how they think about human capital in education—in particular how teachers are trained
  • inally, we need new assessments that can accurately measure richer learning and more complex tasks
  • Skills and knowledge are not separate, however, but intertwined.
  • In some cases, knowledge helps us recognize the underlying structure of a problem.
  • At other times, we know that we have a particular thinking skill, but domain knowledge is necessary if we are to use it.
  • if skills are independent of content, we could reasonably conclude that we can develop these skills through the use of any content. For example, if students can learn how to think critically about science in the context of any scientific material, a teacher should select content that will engage students (for instance, the chemistry of candy), even if that content is not central to the field. But all content is not equally important to mathematics, or to science, or to literature. To think critically, students need the knowledge that is central to the domain.
  • The importance of content in the development of thinking creates several challenges
  • first is the temptation to emphasize advanced, conceptual thinking too early in training
  • Another curricular challenge is that we don't yet know how to teach self-direction, collaboration, creativity, and innovation the way we know how to teach long division.
  • But experience is not the same thing as practice. Experience means only that you use a skill; practice means that you try to improve by noticing what you are doing wrong and formulating strategies to do better. Practice also requires feedback, usually from someone more skilled than you are.
  • We must plan to teach skills in the context of particular content knowledge and to treat both as equally important.
  • education leaders must be realistic about which skills are teachable. If we deem that such skills as collaboration and self-direction are essential, we should launch a concerted effort to study how they can be taught effectively rather than blithely assume that mandating their teaching will result in students learning them.
  • teachers don't use them.
  • Even when class sizes are reduced, teachers do not change their teaching strategies or use these student-centered method
  • these methods pose classroom management problems for teachers.
  • These methods also demand that teachers be knowledgeable about a broad range of topics and are prepared to make in-the-moment decisions as the lesson plan progresses.
  • constant juggling act
  • greater collaboration among teachers.
  • But where will schools find the release time for such collaboration?
  • professional development is a massive undertaking.
  • Unfortunately, there is a widespread belief that teachers already know how to do this if only we could unleash them from today's stifling standards and accountability metrics. This notion romanticizes student-centered methods, underestimates the challenge of implementing such methods, and ignores the lack of capacity in the field today.
  • The first challenge is the cost.
  • measures that encourage greater creativity, show how students arrived at answers, and even allow for collaboration.
  • When students first encounter new ideas, their knowledge is shallow and their understanding is bound to specific examples. They need exposure to varied examples before their understanding of a concept becomes more abstract and they can successfully apply that understanding to novel situations.
Michele Brown

Stephen R. Covey: Our Children and the Crisis in Education - 61 views

  • Employers and business leaders need people who can think for themselves -- who can take initiative and be the solution to problems. They need people who can build trust and get along with others, and solve complex challenges in teams without much supervision.
  • "Partnerships between schools and parents in educating the whole child, which includes developing both the character strength and the competencies required to really succeed in the 21st Century."
  • A.B. Combs Elementary School in Raleigh, North Carolina
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  • Seven Habits of Highly Effective People -- a set of universal, timeless, self-evident principles common to every enduring, prospering society, organization, or family. I take no credit for these principles. I simply organized, sequenced and articulated them. These principles include 1) taking personal responsibility and initiative, 2) getting clear about what's important to you and setting goals, 3) putting those priorities first and being disciplined, 4) seeking mutual benefit in all interactions with others -- the golden rule, 5) seeking to understand others from their perspective first before making your point, 6) valuing differences and creating third-alternative solutions to problems that are better than "my way" or "your way," and 7) taking care of and renewing yourself in all four areas of life -- body, mind, heart and spirit.
  • The approach is inside-out, with the teachers and administrators learning, living and modeling the principles themselves first, and then, at the most basic level, integrating the principles into their teaching every day. There is no new curriculum. The principles of effectiveness are creatively woven by teachers into every subject -- reading, math, history, science, social studies, art, etc. From the moment they walk into the school each day until the final bell rings, the children soak in their adult leaders' belief that they are leaders of their own lives, have unique talents, and can make a difference.
  • We don't define leadership as becoming the CEO or the few percent who will end up in big leadership positions. We are talking about leading your own life, being a leader among your friends, being a leader in your own family. Leadership, as one school put it, is doing the right thing even when no one is looking.
  • The world has moved into one of the most profound eras of change in human history.
Martin Burrett

Action Research - What and how? by @Clare2ELT - 20 views

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    Many schemes of professional development for teachers, as well as advanced teaching certificates, include an element of 'Action Research' (AR). In my work as a team leader of EFL tutors, I've come to see just how important AR is for teachers to continue to develop and professionalise their teaching practices. And I'm so enthusiastic about teachers doing research that I want to share some introductory thoughts with a wider audience - with you, my dear blog readers! I hope I can inspire you to start your own AR projects, and would love to hear what you get up to...
Martin Burrett

12 things teachers can do to help reduce stress - 73 views

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    Yay, another new year! Where does the time go? Being a teacher is a stressful job, but one of the most rewarding vocations available. Sometimes, it is possible to lose sight of the important things in life, as the stress of the job takes over your life. We all make resolutions with good intentions, but reducing work stress is critical for ensuring that the job doesn't absorb every waking moment in your life. Below are 12 suggestions on how teachers (and school leaders) can reduce stress, for themselves, for colleagues, and for pupils. Some of the suggestions might seem obvious, but it's nice to be reminded, and to allow you to reflect on opportunities you have to reduce some of the stress in your life.
Martin Burrett

Talking Education - 5 views

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    "Teachers talk… a lot! As a teacher I have lost my voice many times, and still the talking continues. But do we say the right things in education. This session will explore how teachers, pupils, the community, educational leaders and outside professionals communicate, or fail to do so and why this might be."
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