One of the advantages of holistic grading systems like the one we use at Lincoln School is greater score reliability. In other words, it’s much more likely that a student would earn the same score, regardless of the teacher marking their assessment, than they would in a percentage-based system. As an example, what exactly differentiates... Continue Reading →
Student-Centered Strategies: Exit Passes
As you know, the high school team at Lincoln School is spending our in-house, professional development time this year by focusing on our instructional practice. September is the first month where we’ll be focusing on a particular instructional strategy and we’re kicking things off with exit passes. An exit pass (also called an exit ticket,... Continue Reading →
Why Labels Matter
This year, I’m enrolled in a Graduate Certificate program from Drury University in Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity Leadership. I’m excited to be taking part in the program, both because I’m passionate about issues of Social Justice and because I hope to learn more in terms of the concepts, content, and skills I need to be... Continue Reading →
Setting the Tone
As you know, the high school team at Lincoln School is spending our in-house, professional development time this year by focusing on our instructional practice. More specifically, we’re talking about research-backed, student-centered instructional strategies that form our instructional core. They define who we are and what we believe as educators, and they function as a... Continue Reading →
An Attitude of Gratitude
This was our first week of the 2022-2023 school year, and it was incredible! We started with a whole-school assembly attended by students, staff, and many of the seniors’ parents. We introduced the Class of 23 and talked to them about the year to come and our general excitement to have them back on campus... Continue Reading →
Student-Centered and Inclusive Instruction
It has been a long time since I’ve written a blog post, almost a full year. 2021-2022 was a great school year, but it was a heavy-lift managing the pandemic and adjusting to the changing educational landscape. We rescheduled our high school three times throughout the year in order to keep up with changing government... Continue Reading →
Diversity in the Curriculum
Creative Commons This is a post originally written in September 2021... Recently, we started our professional learning as a High School faculty for the 2021 school year by dividing ourselves into three groups to act as PLTs (Professional Learning Teams). Each PLT will focus on a different, pre-determined area of learning, either "differentiation," "diversity," or... Continue Reading →
Tree of Inclusion
This is a post originally written in November 2021... I recently had the opportunity to lead another short Professional Development session focused on Diversity and Inclusion. This time, I wanted to talk with teachers about those terms, what they mean, and how they are related. To do so, I came up with an activity I... Continue Reading →
The Year Ahead
We’re three weeks into our 2021-2022 school year and it’s been, by all measures, a fantastic start. We have all of our students back on campus full-time for the first time since March 2019, our twelfth-grade students were welcomed back with most of the traditional hoopla, and students are learning, collaborating, and enjoying their time... Continue Reading →
Life Lessons from Scooby Doo
Each year, the Lincoln School senior class picks a theme, a sort of cartoon spirit-animal, from which they base their senior uniform and events. Since I’ve been at Lincoln, different generations have picked The Incredibles, Monsters Inc., and other well-known cartoons for this purpose. This year, our senior class has chosen Scooby Doo, my favorite... Continue Reading →
Garrenteed Learning 