Professional Learning for Busy Educators

As you are beginning to think about returning to school, I have a suggestion that can drastically impact your year (and it's simple): brainstorm questions to ask your students. 

The kids right in front of us often have the most useful information within them -- information that can help us reach and teach them, help us engage them, and that can help us have a fantastic year together.

One of the many wonders of being a teacher is that we affect children’s lives both in ways we understand and in ways we can’t begin to comprehend. But many of the demands of being a teacher can eclipse the fact that students are the center of our profession. We can easily become fixated on adhering to state standards, district initiatives, and departmental guidelines while we busily attend meetings, pore over lesson plans, and grade piles of student papers.

Yet we must remain focused on the needs of our students and remember a John Hattie phrase: “A positive, caring, respectful environment is a prior condition to learning.” Regardless of how busy we are, we cannot underestimate the importance of cultivating a classroom culture in which students feel valued and respected because if our students aren’t learning, the other tasks are meaningless. And one way we can build this solid foundation for learning is to listen to our students.

When your job hinges on how well you talk to people, you learn a lot about how to have conversations -- and that most of us don't converse very well. Celeste Headlee has worked as a radio host for decades, and she knows the ingredients of a great conversation: Honesty, brevity, clarity and a healthy amount of listening. In this insightful talk, she shares 10 useful rules for having better conversations. "Go out, talk to people, listen to people," she says. "And, most importantly, be prepared to be amazed."