It's been a while

So, I haven't posted since January 25th. That's almost 2 full months...

I'll be honest, I haven't felt like writing. When I visited with many other administrators after I got my new job, they told me to be aware of February and March. These can be some difficult times and motivation and self-confidence seem to fall away. Man, were they right! There have been some trying situations and the weather isn't nice. I leave for work in the dark and return in the dark.... I'd get home and hang with my family for a while, then turn on the TV and just veg. I wasn't taking time to blog, tweet, or read any educational books. I wasn't making myself a better educator.

Well, I've decided not to let myself get down. I'm going to focus on the good things. I've started to visit more classrooms again, rather than getting lost in the paperwork. I've started getting to work a little earlier to get some of the paperwork done. I'm even going to teach a lesson in the Algebra 1 class in the next couple of weeks. I'm excited about that!

Just wanted to share what's been going on. I hope to start writing more regularly as well.

What a day!

Today was a great day! I took 5 teachers from our building to visit Waukee Middle School. I saw some great teaching and learning. The thing that impressed me the most about the teachers, administrators, and instructional coaches at WMS was their focus on data. We spent time in numerous classrooms, observing the teachers. Our purpose in the visit was to learn about the workshop model of classroom instruction. Like the title of this post.. it was a great day!

During our visit, I tweeted this post.. http://goo.gl/A65Su It was prompted by some reflection. I got to spend today learning and sitting in classrooms. One would think that I would spend time in classrooms, and I do, but not a full day, not being distracted with phone calls or student discipline. It hit me, the learnings I've had during my masters classes about quality instruction would make me a much better teacher than I was. Spending time in others classrooms is such a powerful learning tool! In our school have started to do that with team walkthroughs, but haven't done it enough. It's time to refocus! To spend more time and effort on instruction.