Web Resources: January/February 2013

Help Teachers Be Their Best

For more insight on how to improve teaching, check out the Grooming Teacher Excellence issue in the Principal archives.
Buy Todd Whitaker’s book, What Great Teachers Do Differently, in the National Principals Resource Center bookstore.

Teacher Wellness: A Conversation With Adam Sáenz

Discover Adam Sáenz's strategies for tackling several common wellness quandaries, including how to engage discouraged new teachers' well-being even on a crunched schedule.
Information about Sáenz's workshops for schools can be accessed on his website.
You can find Sáenz's book The Power of a Teacher in the National Principal's Resource Center Bookstore.

Time Shift: Developing Teacher Teams

Solution Tree’s All Things PLC website offers ideas and examples of how schools have embedded collaborative planning time in their school’s master timetable.
Find resources, templates, and support for the collaborative team meeting structure briefly described in this article on the Jigsaw Learning website.
Richard DuFour and Robert Marzano make the case for principals shifting how they provide leadership and support for teachers and student learning.

Breaking the Behavior Code

OSEP Technical Assistance Center on Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) provides an easy-to-search catalog of resources for educators.
Intervention Central features well-informed plans for behavioral interventions, with specific resources for motivation, rewards, and special needs.
Visit the Principal archives to read “Problems on the Playground: A Different Approach to Recess.”

Do You Have a Mentoring Mindset?

In “Mirror Mirror: 6 Development Conversations to Have With Yourself,” mentoring expert Lois Zachary provides reflection prompts protégés can use for goal setting.
Find out more about NAESP’s National Mentor Program, which nationally certifies mentors across the nation.

Helping Military Children Feel "At Ease"

The Military Child Education Coalition provides free professional development opportunities for educators, a resource and reference library, and much more.
Educators in affected states should familiarize themselves with the Interstate Compact on Educational Opportunity for Military Children. This site not only provides information on the Compact, but also provides context for its adoption and implementation.