Tom Waters

  Your Vision and School Culture "When we think we need to solve problems all the time, we forget to focus on and celebrate what's already working!" From  @Jennifer_Hogan "The problem with passion...I was too invested in the process...prohibiting me from seeing things through the teacher's eyes." From  @matthew_arend "I believe it's the duty of the educator to prepare students to maneuver in the world regardless of the world's obstacles. Ss determine their position in this world, and this begins with a school's culture." From  @calewis1975 Professional Learning and Relationships "When a campus culture lives and breathes professional growth, the principal must clear paths for the teachers that work to improve themselves and their teams." From  @GlennWilly   "Reflection is a state of mind. It’s a mental habit. It’s a necessity for outlier teachers." From  @mafost "If you want s...

Three principals go to their schools one day, and each one faces a series of problems, challenges, and frustrations with staff members. The first principal, the Talker, decides to summon the courage and talk candidly with two teachers that she is concerned about. It's not a pleasant thing for the Talker, but she believes transparency and truthfulness build trust and respect . The Faker believes being kind and positive will create the conditions for her campus to thrive. She also has two teachers that she's concerned about, but is fearful of holding an uncomfortable conversation - instead, she fakes a smile and brings in heavy doses of nice . The Shaker also has two teachers that seem to be causing problems on her campus. She shakes things up by deciding to move these two teachers into positions that they will dislike, and she hopes they get the message . The Talker Without a doubt, the Talker tackles discomfort with courage and honesty. If this approach is couche...

Assessment often falls under the hate mail category, standardized testing. And rightfully so. Here are three ways that you can improve assessment practices on your campus. What will these ideas in this post do for you? improve reliability data sets that are simpler to interpret data that's actionable, quickly reporting that details learning, not just a grade information that can lead to highly-reliable evaluations of curricular programs Data Dashboards A data dashboard is a simple way to combine the most important metrics in ways that improve reflective practice. The data on a dashboard need to vary from sensitive data that show weekly student growth to qualitative results from parent surveys. Read more on Data is Not the Solution for Teachers   A defining characteristic of effective dashboards is the combination of district/campus determined metrics and teacher-developed metrics. This increases involvement in the assessment and evaluation pro...