Blog 2

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Student and Results Focused

Please click on the link below for an excellent and  informative Powtoon Video about success criteria.

PowToon Video

Relationship Driven

FOOD FOR YOUR HEART!

Giving recognitions can feel awkward at first. To others and to yourself. You might struggle to find words that feel right, make sense, and don’t energize the negative. Go directly to your heart. Literally.

Try this: Take it easy on yourself. Reset as needed.  Any time you feel yourself in the struggle, pause and focus on what you are feeling in your heart. Take a breath (or a few) into that place. Let whatever emotions and words come up guide you in the next moments. Remember to be kind to YOURSELF too. Like It’s like I tell students, “We can do hard things.” We already are.

Intentionally Personalized

How to Help Students Set and Reach Their Goals

“If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up someplace else.” Yogi Berra

It is easy to set an arbitrary goal for some point in the future; however, it is quite different to consciously choose a realistic goal to attain and develop an action plan in order to achieve it. Understanding how to set realistic goals and developing a plan to achieve these goals is essential in helping students understand who they are as learners and provides them with the opportunity to reflect upon their journey, instead of simply focusing on successes and failures.

• Setting Realistic or Reasonable Goals: It is very important for students to clearly define what they would like to achieve.
• Developing a Step-By-Step Action Plan: Students need to ask themselves, “What do I have to do in order to reach my goal?” Each week, students can reflect on their progression towards their goal.  This makes students accountable for their success and provides them with the opportunity to understand what they need to work on next.
• Reflecting on the Journey: It is important to discuss with students that not everyone in the class may reach their goals—this may be due to lack of effort, difficulties along the way, or circumstances beyond their control. The class discussion should also focus on reflecting on the journey and not just on the final outcome, as the journey is just as important as the destination.

Too often, our students only focus on the end point instead of considering the entire journey.  The key lesson for students is that determination, hard work, and reflective thought is needed in order to recognize an area for improvement and actively work to accomplish a change.

Forever Learner

Our Profile of a Leader states that we are "personally modeling an insatiable desire to learn and improve by...always seeking opportunities to learn and grow". Last year one of our focus topics in our blog was about the growth mindset and how to create a classroom of students knowing that learning is not just about producing the right answers all the time. It is is about giving yourself permission to fail, improve constantly, to make the effort, to think outside the box, to create, innovate, and stretch your brain and grow.  

Click on how A growth mindset also applies to adults to get the details. Its harder for us as adults to be okay with not being perfect but a growth mindset also means that we realize that we as adults can not be rigid in our thinking and we can't ask students to do what we are unwilling to do...take risks, consider new innovative ideas and new ways of thinking about how we do the work we do with our most precious commodity...our students.  
Don't wait!  This is our MOST URGENT MONTH!