Encouraging teachers to focus on their strengths—while taking a few things off their plates and carving out time for catch-up work—can help them weather a difficult year.

Three things every administrator can do to encourage teachers at the end of this difficult year—and in the future as well.

Finding a sense of community is sometimes a challenge for rural teachers, but these six strategies can help

Educational book studies give teachers opportunities for powerful professional development built on collaboration and connection.

Improving Your Practice Through A Self-Coaching Framework

When teachers have opportunities to earn renewal credits through self-directed PD, they often find the learning more engaging.

Teacher growth isn’t a checkbox—it’s the spark that reignites the joy of learning across the entire school community. In this Big Think, Darcy Bakkegard of The Educators’ Lab joins us to explore how trust-based, teacher-centered professional learning fuels the kind of deeper learning all learners—young and adult—deserve.

Instead of using PD workshop time making assumptions about students, we should get their input beforehand.

Exit interviews, well-known in business, can be as productive for administrators and the school community as new staff interviews.

These strategies can help administrators reflect on why and how they gather their staff—improving meeting outcomes and creating a positive staff culture.

Teaching can be isolating, and finding a like-minded colleague to talk things over with has a lot of benefits.

Maximize conference learning with strategies that help you set goals, organize your time, and remember what you’ve learned after it’s all over.

Professional development created by colleagues can inspire growth and ensure that support is as current and relevant as possible.

The world is changing fast...education is lagging behind. Michelle Blanchet and Darcy Bakkegard have created The Startup Teacher Playbook to put power back in the hands of teachers so they can make need changes for their students.

Empowering teachers through trust and resources enables them to lead impactful, community-driven projects, fostering innovation and systemic change.

These strategies for using play-based learning with older students can get them more engaged with your course content.

Class discussions work best when everyone participates, and these strategies for grades 6 to 12 help ensure that happens.

Debating helps students strengthen their communication and objective thinking skills, and practice patience and tolerance.

Startup your ideas!

Here’s my invitation to you as you continue to serve and support your students this year: Let go of “perfect.” 

When chaos abounds (and when doesn’t it as an educator?) and things feel like they are spirling away, I grab hold of something tangible that I can control that will also bring me a bit of joy.

There’s a lot of talk about the need for teacher self-care but less about simple hows and whens. But what if self-care wasn’t something separate? What if we could infuse self-care right into our teaching practice? Try teaching gratitude.

Have an idea? Ready to try something new? Startup your ideas.

Students may see ways they can effect change if they break down big issues like climate change into smaller, more accessible challenges.

These engaging multimedia strategies can help teens discover and focus on their long-term goals.

One way to help students master skills is to let them cultivate their own English language arts content to explore. Here’s how.

Personalize your professional development to the unique needs of your teaching practice.

Teachers can try these project ideas to have students produce media, which helps boost engagement and learning.

Weekly themes like Chef Week make school fun while giving students a way to connect all the things they’re learning.

How to get the PD you want, need, and enjoy.

How do we ensure that as things “return to normal,” ed-tech burnout doesn’t lead to less ed-tech? For me, it requires a one-two punch: Rethink how many ed-tech tools we use. Refocus on how we deploy ed-tech to address problems.

To make middle and high school presentations more engaging, teachers can use a simple tool to have students share meaningful feedback.

Are you an upset teacher? How to understand what’s wrong.

By treating media like text, teachers can create a fast, relevant, and affordable lesson that stimulates lively discussion.

Here’s how to turn these visual representations of film sequences into a valuable teaching tool across content and grades.