Blog

Common PLC Pitfalls... And How to Fix Them

Data teams, teacher teams, and PLCs come up quite often in Achievement Teams. In this post, learn what they are, why they are important, and how you can ensure they are effective.

Interacting With Success Criteria

Success criteria and teacher clarity go hand in hand. Read about how they can help students become more metacognitive and take ownership in their learning.

High-Impact Instructional Leadership Strategies that Impact Student Learning

A leader who has internalized high-impact instructional leadership strategies will remain steadfast in their ultimate goal – supporting educators as they work to achieve exceptional results with their students. But what are the highest impact instructional leadership moves?

Keep a Pulse on Teaching and Learning With Short-Cycle Assessments

With such an emphasis on end-of-year standardized testing, it is understandable why many students see grades and performance as some sort of permanent label on them as a learner. What if we shifted our focus to short-cycle assessments?

A Beginner’s Guide to Learning Targets and Progressions

After two years of disrupted learning, students are feeling the impact on their academic performance. Even more concerning is the fact that existing inequitable achievement gaps have widened over the course of the pandemic.

Centering Student Voice through Educator Collaboration and Instructional Practice

If you are an educator looking to shift from being a “sage on the stage” to a “guide on the side,” start by establishing a collaborative culture in your PLC or teaching team.

From Islands of Impact to Widespread Change: The Instructional Leader’s Role in Collective Efficacy

When adults have a high degree of confidence in their collective ability to improve their practice, students' have more confidence in their ability to learn.

The Power of Collective Teacher Efficacy and Collaboration

After decades of working with schools and leadership teams, one takeaway has always remained consistent. Students achieve more when teachers collaborate, and collaboration has the power to accelerate the effectiveness of teacher teams.

4 Steps to Better Teacher Collaboration

Once teams make initial observations from the data collected, it's time to use this information for goal-setting. Goals provide a destination and opportunities for reflection, while ultimately leading to higher levels of performance.

3 Ways to Accelerate the Success of Your Teacher Teams

Instructional leaders spearhead professional learning communities (PLCs), or teacher teams, with the best of intentions: to foster collective efficacy and improve collaboration among educators in their organizations.

Timing is Everything: Selecting Strategies for Optimal Learning

Some instructional strategies, like success criteria, are unanimously touted as impactful while others get a bad rap. This leaves us to wonder: Out of the hundreds of strategies to choose from, which ones produce optimal learning?

4 Ways to Increase Your Instructional Leadership Influence

The ability to influence is an essential skill for leaders. Through influence, leaders impact team members’ behaviors, attitudes, and actions. As a leader in the educational field, your ability to influence others can have a direct impact on student learning and performance. Lets explore some ways to build your leadership influence.

4 Ways to Give Students a Choice When it Comes to Learning

By giving students more choice when it comes to learning, engagement soars and so does student achievement.

Developing SMART Goals for Social Emotional Learning (SEL) Using the Achievement Teams Process

SMART goals are common practice for educators, but what do SMART goals look like for SEL initiatives and programs?

How School Leaders Can Support Teachers in the “New Normal” of Distance and Hybrid Teaching

During this time of uncertainty, it is more important than ever for school leaders to lead with clarity of expectations, model persistence and dedication, and display empathy for students, families, and teachers.

How Leaders Can Support Parents and Families--Right Now!

Parents and families need support from school leaders now more than ever as they navigate through virtual learning, hybrid schedules, and increased safety guidelines.

3 Highly-Effective Instructional Strategies to Engage Students—Both in the Classroom and Virtually!

Michelle Ventura introduces three instructional strategies that can be used in the classroom or used in a virtual learning setting.

Collaboration and Collective Teacher Efficacy—A Holistic Approach to School Improvement

Collective efficacy can be nurtured through collaboration and teacher teams, resulting in increased student achievement.

Emerging Discoveries through Virtual Learning

Virtual learning has brought many challenges, but with it, we’ve seen some trends that should stick around longer than this pandemic.

Truth Three: Great Schools Move from Islands of Excellence to Systematic Impact with High Levels of Collective Efficacy and Commitment

Part 3 of 3. This three-part series debunks myths and provides the truth about what works best for school improvement.

Distance Learning Should Not Become the “New Normal”

Since we have been under “shelter-in-place” orders due to the COVID-19 crisis and schools have been forced to transition to distance teaching and learning, the phrase “new normal” has been applied to many different scenarios. But is this really what we want school to look like moving forward?

Truth Two: An Instructional Leader Does Not Merely “Sponsor” Learning for Others

Part 2 of 3. This three-part series debunks myths and provides the truth about what works best for school improvement.

Truth One: A Program Will Never Have as Much Impact as Your Practice

Part 1 of 3. This three-part series debunks myths and provides the truth about what works best for school improvement.

Developing Teacher Clarity through Achievement Teams

Teacher clarity is a framework built on two things: collaborative philosophies and explicit instruction.

How to Overcome a Pedagogy of Poverty

Creating a learning environment where students thrive occurs through teacher clarity, formative assessment, questioning, and feedback.