Let me tell you a story
We’ve spent our careers advocating for our students and now it’s time to advocate for our profession and ourselves. We can impact, influence and change the public narrative around public education.
All teachers can be leaders
Sarah Reed, Kentucky's 2015 Teacher of the Year, says teachers' voices matter -- both in the classroom and in shaping public policy.
Learning starts before children enter kindergarten
Making sure children are college and career ready begins at birth and involves the entire community. A new Kentucky Department of Education tool may be able to help.
Making time for teacher leadership
With endless to-do lists, it’s reasonable for teachers to hesitate in committing to any extra opportunities outside the classroom. Already over-committed, I contemplated applying to the Kentucky Network to Transform Teaching’s Classroom Teachers Enacting Positive Solutions (CTEPS) program.
Teacher leadership is about growing our students
Heidi Givens By Heidi Givens Heidi.givens@Daviess.kyschools.us Teacher leadership is “the process by which teachers, individually and collectively, influence their colleagues, principals, and other members of the school community to improve teaching and learning practices with the aim of increased student learning and achievement.” (York-Barr and Duke, 2004) When selected as 2013 Kentucky Elementary Teacher of the Year, I [...]
Standards-Based Grading & PGES: The Perfect Connection
Natalie McCutchen By Natalie McCutchen natalie.mccutchen@simpson.kyschools.us Marie Montessori said the greatest sign of success for a teacher is to be able to say, “The children are now working as if I did not exist.” For the past few years, I have been working to make my students more self-sufficient and more independent thinkers who are engaged in their [...]
The freedom to make mistakes
David Grossman I still remember one of my first years teaching middle school science when my students conducted a lab and their data did not support the Law of Conservation of Mass. This was a big deal because the whole reason we were doing the lab was to learn or reinforce the Law of Conservation of Mass. That [...]
TPGES: An Opportunity beyond Compliance
Sherri McPherson Naturally, when the Teacher Professional Growth and Effectiveness System (TPGES) was rolled out to our faculty many of us had questions. At my school, some of us wondered how this work would look in our large high school. Would our principals be stretched too thin with all of the observations and conferences? Others wondered how we [...]
When students engage true learning takes place
Tanya Jury By Tanya Jury Tanya.jury@hardin.kyschool.us Although it used to be the norm for teachers to close their doors, lecture for 45 minutes while students sat in rows, listened, and took notes, times have changed. Over the past several years, student engagement has started to become quite a popular topic in the realm of education. So much so, [...]
Teachers can get plenty of help in implementing standards
Tricia Shelton By Tricia Shelton tricia.shelton@boone.kyschools.us The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and the Framework for K-12 Science Education articulate a beautiful vision for our students. The overarching goal of the standards is a coherent and rigorous science education for all students that enables them to be critical consumers of science and attain the scientific literacy necessary to [...]