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I love TED talks and I always look forward for their new releases. You can learn as deep and profound insights from these talks as when reading a non-fiction book. I know we all have our time constraints that would not allow us to sit in front of an iPad or computer for 20 minutes watching a talk but there is always snatches of time to do it particularly in the weekends. Create a list of what to watch , as I do, and bookmark the talks that interest you and watch them later when you have time.

Teachers have set aside time. Families have rearranged their schedules. Everyone is ready for parent-teacher conferences. This can play out in one of two ways. If there is something crucial to discuss, you might wonder: Shouldn't the parents and teachers have been communicating about this already? If there is nothing crucial to discuss, is it a waste of everyone's time?

Each year our kindergarten classrooms fill with eager children. Some students come with quiet dispositions; others are overflowing with things to say. Often the talkative group is told to be a little quieter. Sometimes, particularly if the students are boys of color, their talkative behavior is seen as disruptive and their identity as burgeoning mathematicians is at risk though it has scarcely begun to form. But what happens when we raise the status of talkers during math time?

Taking the time to practice mindfulness, every day, several times a day, has made a big difference at a school trying to overcome trauma.

It's a pretty exciting time to work in my current school district. About twenty years ago, the elementary school implemented a standards-based report card. Over the past several years, we've seen a grassroots movement in the area of assessment and grading reform in our secondary buildings. Dozens of teachers and building leadership teams have visited and/or inquired about what's going on in our high school and middle school, which is one of the reasons we'll soon be co-hosting a standards-based grading conference in eastern Iowa (before you ask, we've reached our registration capacity and the waiting list has been closed as well).

Annie Emerson doesn't have to wonder about what it takes to help her kindergarten students learn how to write or do math. They've told her. Several times during the year, the Pinewoods Elementary School teacher asks her students two basic questions: what are ways that I teach you that you like or that are really working for you? What could be changed to help you learn even more? And it turns out even 5-year-olds have plenty to say.

Mike Wiser at The Quad-City Times reported today on the controversy here in Iowa around connecting student test scores to teacher evaluations (aka 'value-added modeling' or 'VAM'). Last week I shared the research and prevailing opinion of scholars supporting why this should not be done.

Junior high is a weird, often heartbreaking time for young women-and it might be just as weird and heartbreaking for their teachers.

There's an array of Twitter tools that make the rounds on the ol' edtech circle. We chat about Hootsuite, Paper.li, and Bit.ly quite a bit. But there are a lot of little-known Twitter tools that don't see the light of day on sites like Edudemic. So I thought this would be a good time to start fixing that. We're creating a series of helpful posts designed to turn you on to a few tools that you may not know about - but will be anxious to try once you learn about them.