August eBook Top 5 Collection OCM BOCES Instructional Support would highlight these selections from our eBook Professional Library. View Professional eBook Library.

The Principal 50: Critical Leadership Questions for Inspiring Schoolwide Excellence Guides school leaders through 50 self-reflection exercises designed to yield a deeper understanding of the meaning behind the work that they do. Read more

5 Myths About Classroom Technology: How Do We Integrate Digital Tools to Truly Enhance Learning? Explains how you can assess and answer your students' technology needs in terms of access, purpose, and audience. Read more

Differentiation in Middle & High School: Strategies to Engage All Learners Explores how to use differentiated instruction to help students be more successful learners--regardless of background, native language, learning style, motivation, or school savvy. Read more

How to Make Decisions with Different Kinds of Student Assessment Data Identifies the critical elements and nuances of assessment data and how that information can best be used to inform improvement efforts in the school or district. Read more

Real-World Projects: How Do I Design Relevant & Engaging Learning Experiences? Describes how to connect with real-world experts, allies, and audiences; and what practical, field-tested strategies are essential for planning, assessing, and using technology to support successful projects. Read more

August 26, 2016

Image: @rickwormeli2

Rick Wormeli, in this publicly available article from Educational Leadership, reminds us what is most important to do in the first week of school. The first week sets the tone for the entire year. That’s why relationship building is so vital. In the same issue, another article offers ways to use technology to help with those relationships.

A second grade teacher describes her classroom and her approach to education. It might be different than other elementary classrooms. Her video might inspire you to do things a little differently and to have students doing more of the learning (and teaching).

In this video, teachers at a school in Arizona share pictures of students who are important to them. Watch their reactions – the reactions hint at the power of relationships and telling people what they mean to us. Another video offers a compliment to that – people expressing what a teacher meant to them.

Create the positive classroom culture you need with these suggestions. It starts with greeting students at the door and continues inside the walls of the classroom.

The cursive writing debate just never seems to go away. Is it a case of school being about the adults' past rather than our students' future?  This recent piece from The New York Times weighs in on the issue.

There are many picture books to use at the beginning of the year.

The fall catalog of offerings from Curriculum, Instruction & Assessment is up. Click here to learn more about standards-based instruction, leadership, deeper learning, literacy, standards-areas, culture, assessment, and much more!

This free preview of a new ASCD book about questions includes an overview of the different types of questions and a look at rigor and higher order questions.

Misconceptions about Differentiated Instruction are clarified in this Education Week post, which includes a great graphic.

Registration is now open for the regional science conference set for November 8th. Space is limited; included districts have a limited number of spaces. Don’t hesitate to claim yours before registration is open to a wider audience.

An authentic audience can make a difference in the work that students do. The quality of the work, student engagement, and relevance significantly are higher. Doing everything for the teacher just isn’t authentic.

In an interview, John Hattie describes several conclusions that he has made based on his research:

• Our factory model of education isn’t working well enough (anymore).
• There is less feedback, less group work and more teacher talk in smaller classes, so reducing class size is not the answer.
• Effective assessment is assessment that allows teachers to monitor their instructional impact.
• Increasing teacher expertise is the way to improve our model.

The results from two recent polls about education in the United States indicates that people are very supportive of common standards (but less so when they have the name Common Core attached). And, has been the case for some time, schools nationally aren’t doing well but people consistently rate their own school highly.

This story from The Washington Post explains what happens when there is no homework. Something to think about?