Wissahickon Staff Developers

A great list of resources, every single day!

Thousands of video lectures from the world's top scholars.

New to instructional coaching? Want to learn more about instructional coaching and mentoring? The time has come…PIIC's newest resource, The Instructional Coaching Resource Guide, is now available. The purpose of this guide is to provide mentors and instructional coaches with a powerful set of materials to help them practice their craft

Free Classroom Guides and Educational Downloads for 2011 Get our easy-to-print guides that include useful tips for teachers, parents, and school administrators.

At Teaching Channel we believe what makes teachers inspiring is how they became experts -- the hours and years they've dedicated to improving their craft to benefit their students. Our mission is to capture their technique on video so that all teachers -- new or seasoned -- have a place to find inspiration. Of course you could just lean back and admire great stories, but we also provide tools to take a few notes, trade ideas, and even build your own personal workspace. And because we know teaching is not one-size-fits-all, we tailored our technology so you can find what works best for you.

The Instructional Coaching Scale is designed to help  instructional coaches and professional developers measure the impact of their coaching on the teachers with whom they interact.  It is not intended to measure teacher implementation, but rather the effects that an instructional coach or some other person working in a close 1:1 capacity with teachers whose job it is to facilitate change in instructional practice.  

Survey/Poll to use for Instructional Coaches for coaching effectiveness.teaching practices, district support, implementation,student achievement

A great list of Twitter hashtags for education .. VERY cool!

Mentoring can accelerate the development of new teachers' instructional practice. Mentors need comprehensive and ongoing professional development to be effective. These conversation tips provide insight into the broader curriculum of mentor professional development offered by the New Teacher Center at University of California, Santa Cruz, a content contributor to PBS TeacherLine.

A great listing of Professional Organizations for Educators

A great list of things you can learn from Twitter, and reasons why you should be on Twitter yourself!

"Instructional expert Jim Knight visits John Cusick to observe a small groups project and discuss the classroom management techniques he is using. John and Jim discuss structured lessons, giving students respect, and finding the key to unlocking their love of learning"

"Instructional expert Jim Knight visits Michael Covarrubias to observe a lesson on context clues, discuss the classroom management techniques he is using already, and share some ideas to increase student engagement. Michael and Jim discuss emphasizing effort, getting students attention before asking questions, using response cards, and planning back-up activities."

"A new report has identified key challenges facing education technology in the coming years, ranging from changing economics to instructional practices that have failed to adapt to the evolving technology landscape. 2 But the No. 1 challenge in ed tech, according to the report, is with teachers themselves and the inadequacy of their preparation and ongoing training"

"Whether you're writing a paper or studying for a test, odds are you spend more time gathering the pieces than actually working. In my experience, getting all of my notes together, hunting for quotes, and tracking down bibliographical information takes at least as long, if not longer, as writing the paper itself. In a group situation, sharing research and collaborating on the production of one document is even more difficult without the proper tools. Enter Evernote. For students, it's an invaluable way to organize research and streamline the collaboration process. Here are some examples of how Evernote simplifies the student research process."

"About Our Motivation: Challenges and opportunities, created by our global society, invite teachers, administrators, and students to rethink the way they teach, lead, and learn. The rise of social networking, the ease with which information is shared, and the growth of our global economy are just a few factors that have made it obvious that the 21st century is a much different world than the 20th century. And yet, when we take a good, hard look at the culture within our schools, do we see that much has changed from yesterday to today? We may see more technology used in the classroom and maybe more discussions on the "content vs. skills" debate in the faculty rooms. But underneath it all, have things really changed? Have we successfully forged a culture where life-long learning, personal growth, and collaboration are valued and practiced among all members of the school community? In Richard DuFour's article "Why Look Elsewhere?: Improving Schools from Within," he states that "it is context-the beliefs, expectations, behaviors and norms that constitute the culture of a given school-that plays the largest role in deciding whether a professional development program will make a difference in that school." If a school's goal is to improve student achievement, and a school considers learning to be the crux of its community, then effective professional development-where teachers and administrators themselves become learners-is the bridge to achieving that goal."

This is the front page of the Simple English Wikipedia. Wikipedias are places where people work together to write encyclopedias in different languages. We use Simple English words and grammar here. The Simple English Wikipedia is for everyone! That includes children and adults who are learning English. There are 67,234 articles on the Simple English Wikipedia. All of the pages are free to use. They have all been published under both the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License 3.0 and the GNU Free Documentation License. You can help here! You may change these pages and make new pages. Read the help pages and other good pages to learn how to write pages here. If you need help, you may ask questions at Simple talk.

Through the great folks in the Google Certified Teachers community I've learned that you can now sort your search results by readability. The readability index is a bit coarse, but it is helpful none-the-less. The index use a simple ranking of "basic," "intermediate," and "advanced." In order to sort by readability you have to open the advanced search tools then select "reading level" from the drop-down menus.

"Designed specifically for education stakeholders with an interest in the education technology world, SmartBrief on Ed Tech is a FREE, daily e-mail newsletter. It provides you with the tools to navigate this constantly evolving area to make the best possible decisions for your schools."

"Becoming accustomed as a coach to not having your own classroom or your own students was probably challenging. I am sure, however, you quickly engaged in conversations with your colleagues about offering to demonstrate or co-teach some lessons to those teachers willing to share their students with you. Although alien at first, I'll bet it was very rewarding to work with students again and feel that great "high" that a teacher feels when the lesson worked well. "