As I type this, the first graduating class of SLA@Beeber is crossing the stage, seven years to the day from when SLA-Center City graduated its first class in 2010. This grand plan was kicked around for years while I worked at SLA-Center City and then after I left the classroom, momentum for opening a second campus caught some speed. A rundown of that part of the story can be read here. There was a moment about 3 weeks before the opening and some really challenging issues were mounting… when Chris Lehmann looks at me across his desk and says… “Do you think this was a good idea?” I paused a full ..read more

If you follow me on social media, I’m positive you are sick of hearing about the County Fair. Over the past week my nieces and nephews have been at the local County Fair with their animals: pigs, sheep, horses and beef cattle. Before you start asking about my own storied experiences showing animals at the fair… let me make this easy, I was a D-, falls far below, does not meet expectations kind of farmer. My Fair participation was often with items I had baked, and I was successful in all manner of baking, but my animal ‘showing’ was limited to one sad year with dairy calves in the mid  ..read more

The first time I walked onto the 5th floor of SLA was August of 2008 with Chris Lehmann on a tour of the new space and to pick out my classroom. We opened all the doors and chatted about space, but when we got to room 504 I knew that was the room for me. Gigantic wall of windows and overlooking the rail lines which meant that there was some space for sunlight to fill the room. Over the years we watched the staging of the 2008 Phillies World Series Championship parade, on a lazy Sunday of grading I watched the motorcade for President Obama head for 30th St. station on JFK, there were ..read more

I was fortunate to be a conversation leader, an active attendee and support staff for the 9th convening of EduCon at the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia from January 29-31st, 2016. I’ve been at all the EduCon’s, even before I was hired to be a teacher at SLA. The format mimics the classroom methods that fuel the day to day experience at SLA and must be why I always feel so at home leading sessions in those big rooms with all the spectacular sunlight. This year, after a last minute cancellation, I was able to jump in and co-lead a session with Katrina Stevens, Deputy D ..read more

I miss the working with kids. While I am infinitely entertained by my 7 nieces and nephews, they tire of being ‘in my class’ as I try to recreate a little classroom magic when they come to hang out. So when Brianna Fleetham emailed me in early December sharing that she and her colleagues were working through a unit that was similar to the Power of One unit that I did with my middle schoolers in Flagstaff (10 years ago, oh man), I was interested in hearing more about her project, thrilled to answer questions and definitely worked to get myself invited to school to chat with the kids. Yesterday ..read more

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… you write the foreward! Here is an excerpt from the foreward kicking off Building School 2.0: How to Create the Schools We Need by my long time friends and colleagues, Zac Chase and Chris Lehmann. (spoiler alert: I think this is a fabulous book that you all need to read) During my four years there (SLA), I spent countless hours with Zac and Chris taking care of the administration and long-term planning for the school. Our work flow was definitely unusual. We spent (too) many late nights working around Chris’ desk, cycling between watching West Wing clips on YouTube, sharing thought ..read more

One of the most simple and straightforward challenges I have been posing to teachers this summer is to change one of their classroom practices through a prepositional shift. If you want a teacher to shift to more inquiry, more student driven, then at the core of this switch is going to be how we prepositionally define the space between the teacher and student. Simply put, what are you currently doing to and for students that needs to be by and with students. Choose a classroom routine or procedure, or a teaching method, or a unit and work to apply a new lens to shift one of ..read more

Since I started my career, I have been fascinated with master schedules. I know it is not the most glamorous part of school, but I see the potential in a master schedule to serve so many purposes in a school. The math of it all is a nice little challenge, trying to take the priorities of a school and match that up with their full time teacher allotment, finding possibilities for common prep – all of these factors are interesting to me. Economy, efficiency, balance, equity were all considerations in the dance of getting the master to ‘make’. One of the underlying assumptions of every master sch ..read more

I am working with several schools on transforming the school structures, culture and instruction from a traditional model to a more modern version. Each of the schools has their own take on the outcomes that qualify it as more modern. PBL, personalization/student-centered and technology play a part in each of them. As each of these schools move toward change there are a variety of administrative supports and mandates that make the whole endeavor more dynamic. If you are in a position to walk the path of transformation I would like to offer a few words of observation and possibly advice, that I ..read more