Grit: We Lead it; We Teach it; We Model it

Teaching our students to dig deep and find the triumph in difficulties is as foundational to best instructional practice as basic reading comprehension. How are we teaching grit? How are we leading with grit? How are we modeling the importance of grit for students? 

Is our language in the teachers lounge modeling grit? Are we instilling grit by not allowing students to take a zero? 

Kendrastrange.com

Kendrastrange.blog

Success Equals Falling and Getting Back up Again

Leadership Basics

Great Leaders Simplify Just About Everything

As an instructional leader, one must have systems in place that maximize the efficiency of necessary procedures. Campuses require a systematic approach to effective operation. When an instructional leader collaboratively establishes systems that simplify necessary procedural tasks, more time and energy can be spent on instruction.

Paradigm Shift: Increase Reading Achievement with Vocabulary Skills, Not Vocabulary Word Lists

Abandon the weekly vocabulary quiz? That’s practically instructional blasphemy! Or is it? 

 

Upon close examination of both national and state reading standards, our charge as teachers is not to teach students vocabulary directly. Rather, the charge is to teach students the skills necessary to determine the meaning of new words as they encounter the unfamiliar words in context. This shift of our teaching practices will not only save time by freeing up the precious instructional minutes spent teaching lists of random words, but will allow teachers to maximize learning by requiring students to think critically as they read. As we know when students think critically, their brains are growing at a much more rapid rate than when they are simply listening at a retrieval level. Teach on! 

Dr. Kendra Strange 

Kendrastrangeconsulting.com 

Dr. Kendra Strange: Accelerating Student Achievement through Best Instructional Practice: Rethinking Student Feedback

Dr. Kendra Strange: Accelerating Student Achievement through Best Instructional Practice: Rethinking Student Feedback:  Imagine the impact on learning if classroom teachers gave feedback the way athletic coaches provided their feedback. Think about music teac...

Key to Closing Achievement Gap: Scaffold Instruction While Maintaining the Rigor

 

Often teachers solely focus on teaching prerequisite skills as a means of closely achievement gaps. This practice typically comes from a good intentions with feelings of doing what's right by the child, essentially providing the child with the instruction they need rather than the instruction the on-level curriculum demands. However, the consequence of this approach is a cycle of deficit for groups of students who are never offered the opportunity access grade level curriculum. 

The key to closing, rather than perpetuating achhievment gaps? Scaffold institution in real time within the lesson of the on-level learning standard. In other words, teach every child the required content, scaffolding up and down during the lesson, but never abandoning the Rigor of the original learning target. This practice creates equity in access to the same curriculum proving every student with the opportunity to master the required learning standards. 

Kendra Strange, Ed.D. 

Kendrastrangeconsulting.com