joel “I got your lesson plans right here, buddy!” You know the drill, spend hours creating a lesson plan weeks ahead of the class that you don’t even stick to because the students fell behind last week  and now you’re playing catch up trying to make magic happen. I know. Or an administrator drops by expecting to see your lesson plan … Read more
I found some great stuff going on out there in the world of education blogging this week. Here is a summary of what I found and shared on Twitter (follow @sywtt). this week. Growth Mindset: Clearing Up Some Common Confusions Digital transformation in eduction: from challenge to opportunity What’s so sexy about math? How I teach … Read more
According to ITN Mark Education, there are 7 key components of a good teacher. Love of the subject Stress Management Complete control Organization Professional behavior Expert instructional methods Praise It’s interesting that through the years, I have written about each of these concepts on this blog. Below are links to a few articles with a … Read more
This is an updated version of one of the first articles written on this blog about treating education as a part of the customer service industry. The article was originally posted on February 24, 2007. It was edited and updated on June 15, 2016 to reflect a maturation in my approach to teaching as well as writing. You … Read more
I want you to watch the first 3:40 of this TED Talk by Benjamin Zander Notice the Dramatic change in the piano player from 7 years old to 11 years. Huge difference. But from 8 to 10, there is seemingly no change. What’s happening is incremental change. Each year, the child improves dramatically, but it … Read more
Over the past two weeks, I have jumped back into blogging. This week, I jumped back into Twitter (follow @sywtt). There’s some great stuff going on out there in the world of education blogging. Here is a summary of what I found and shared this week. Response: Blended Learning Is ‘the Next Generation of Education’ … Read more
According to recent studies, 30% of teachers quit teaching by the end of their second year of teaching. I am convinced that many of those cases would be avoided with proper support networks in place. I recently came across an infographic from 2013 by USC Rossier that addresses this issue in their blog post entitled How … Read more
This is an updated version of the first article written on this blog, which was originally posted on February 11, 2007. It was edited and updated on June 9, 2016 to reflect a maturation in my approach to teaching as well as writing. You can read the original along with a handful of comments here. A Matter of … Read more
I recently came across an article by Rachel Maxwell and Jessica Corry called Six Music Classroom Management Strategies. As I read through the list, I noticed many similarities to topics that I have covered frequently. If you find yourself teaching in a music classroom of any sort in the near future, I highly recommend checking … Read more
While I’ve had my ups and downs over the years as a teacher, my first two years were extremely challenging. Many of these pitfalls were avoidable. If I were going into a middle school band class as a first year teacher today, knowing what I know now, I would approach things differently. Here is an unsorted list that … Read more