Investing in Teachers to Transform Schools

Inspired Teaching is featured today on the front page of the Washington Post education section in an article entitled "Center Focuses on Teachers, Not Test Scores" by Valerie Strauss:

Standing in a circle, three dozen teachers listened to an instructor rattle off a math problem. "The square of 4 times 3 plus 5 times 7 minus 8."

They attempted to calculate it in their heads, but not everyone got the right answer, and it wasn't because they couldn't do the math. The teachers realized that not everyone accurately heard the instructions. Some thought the instructor said -- or meant to say -- square root of 4, rather than the square of 4. (So their first calculation was 2 instead of 16.)

"It may seem simple, but this is why it is so important to be sure that you and your students are on the same page," Aleta Margolis, founding executive director of the nonprofit Center for Inspired Teaching, told the D.C. teachers attending a summer workshop. "If teachers can get confused, think about what happens with children."

Relating to students, handling difficult administrators, designing inventive lesson plans and working well with colleagues are among the topics hundreds of teachers are tackling as part of a training effort by the D.C.-based center, which was founded to help teachers become better at what they do.

To read the full article, click on the link below!

Links:

• Washington Post article about Center for Inspired Teaching