http://goo.gl/FkZVT Brian Nichols (@bjnichols) recently wrote a great post titled ''removing roadblocks.'' Brian outlined 3 ways leaders are unknowingly putting up roadblocks that are ultimately preventing their organization from growing. All 3 roadblocks that Brian mentions are unfortunately too often true. I am going to try to take Brian's post ...

Dear teachers, We have a lot of respect for what you do. Your job is extremely difficult, and we understand the many difficulties that encompass being a teacher. Your ability to lead an entire class is frankly amazing, and more importantly, you always seem cool, calm and collected despite what might be going on. There are times when we would love ...

Dear administrators, We have a lot of respect for what you do. Your job is extremely difficult, and there are lots of aspects of your job that we don't fully understand. Your ability to lead an entire staff and student body is frankly amazing, and more importantly, you always seem cool, calm and collected. There are times where we would love to ...

Last week we had our third professional development day at Seckman High School. As a PD representative, I had the opportunity to lead two PD sessions. The format of my sessions was to watch 7 videos that would hopefully spur a lively educational discussion. Teachers were in groups and were asked to document their discussions by using Google Docs: ...

One of the biggest reasons I enjoy using Twitter is it enables me to connect with educators from all around the world. Additionally, Twitter has proven to be an efficient and effective platform to discuss pressing educational issues. Unfortunately, most educators don't have the opportunity to discuss educational issues during the course of the ...

I experienced two very important things recently:   1) - If you ask, you shall receive... Last week I asked 5 students to answer 5 questions related to education.  The questions have nothing to do with my class content, nor will the students receive anything for completing the 5 questions.  I simply asked 5 of my students to give me their ...

The path to growth and development can be ugly at times.  Educators are part of a world that is continually changing and evolving, and as such we are forced to take a leap, and at times take a leap when we are not ready.  Going through all my undergraduate classes at Mizzou we were always told how rewarding and fantastic the field of education ...

I watched this video on TED: Ideas worth spreading (which I highly recommend) http://www.ted.com/, and I have to say I was really intrigued by the topic.  Every day at school I get the opportunity to see students growing and developing...some more than others, and some not enough.  However inconsistent their growth may be, one thing is for ...

My first official working day at school was today...I witnessed ups and downs, heard screams of joy, and whirlpools of pessimism and discontent.  As I thought more about the ''happy'' people, and the not so happy people, I decided to concentrate on why the ''happy'' people were happy.  I soon realized there seemed to be a couple underlying factors ...