Mary Black works with teachers and principals in creative and strategic planning for curriculum and instruction at schools with diverse student populations. She has years of leadership experience in secondary schools, beginning her educational career as a high school English teacher in an urban high school, also serving as a high school principal. She is currently Program Manager and the Certified SIM Professional Development Leader for the SIM team at Region 13.
Every March I watch round after round of NCAA college basketball. A few inches can make the difference between a game-saving win or a loss. Players practice tirelessly to ensure they’re on target. Much like a few inches can determine a win or loss on the court, aligning our lessons can...
Response to Intervention, otherwise known as RTI, is a critical and multi-tier way of identifying and supporting students with behavior or learning needs. As students...
Have you ever had a defeated feeling after you taught a lesson you thought was perfection, only to be met with blank stares and confusion from your students? If...
Remote learning is the new norm for fall instruction, and with this new norm there’s going to be some growing pains. We’ve previously written about how...
Writing frames are a great way to get your students to practice writing. Rather than using a generic prompt, frames engage students in a type of writing by providing...
What do you think of when you hear PLCs? The idea of Professional Learning Communities in schools has been in practice for decades. The PLC teams focused on...
The success of your students depends on whether or not they are absorbing the information you’re teaching them. Often as educators we get bogged down in the process of...
In 2019 I celebrated thirty years as an educator with fourteen years of that time in a high school English classroom. Although perhaps celebrating is the wrong verb, I...
Our days are jam-packed full of conversations. We talk about the weather, about sports, about album releases, politics, movies, TV shows we’ve watched, work, food...
We’ve been thinking a lot about leadership types and collaboration. Personally, we’ve always been strong proponents of collaboration in leadership roles. We believe...
