Educational Directions Blog

Ed Directions coaches and leadership team encounter lots of educational challenges in the schools we partner with.  Read more about how to overcome some of the more common challenges that we have helped schools overcome.

Assessing the At Risk Population in Your School

At this early point in a normal school year, teachers and administrators are assessing the student population to identify those ...
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Unpacking a Standard in the Formative Period

Ed Directions coaches and trainers are currently presenting “Rhythm of the Learner Year – Formative Period” workshops in our partnership ...
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Virtual School – The Challenge of Keeping Students Engaged

 It comes as no surprise that one of the most challenging issues that our coaches have helped teachers with has ...
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Thoughts on Virtual School – The Problem of Attendance

Through discussions with teachers who were finishing their first “virtual school” experience last spring, we found that regular attendance was ...
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2020 – Establishing Academic Rituals

Assessing the Impact – Who Needs Rituals and Routines All students benefit from rituals and routines. They support optimum cultures ...
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Establishing Academic Rituals – Opening School in a Virtual Environment

Assessing the Impact – Who Needs Rituals and Routines All students benefit from rituals and routines. They support optimum cultures ...
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Starting an Uncertain 2020 – 21 School Year After a Semester of Virtual School

A group of Ed Directions coaches were speculating as to the strategies schools were going to use to start school ...
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Strategies for Meaningful Work in a Virtual School Setting

The coronavirus put schools and teachers into an untenable position because they were forced to shut down classrooms and offer ...
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Three key ways that your school district can respond to and improve summer learning in low performing students.

When the Ed Directions coaches started discussing the impact of the coronavirus on schools, one of our first concerns was ...
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We Read the NASSP Report: Supporting A Strong, Stable Principal Workforce, and Here’s What We Have to Add

The NASSP report on principal retention addressed one of the major barriers to ongoing school improvement – the problem of ...
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Testing Period Success – Part 1 – School Achievement Through the Rhythm of the Learner Year

For the past 20 years, the coaches and leaders at Ed Directions have had the opportunity to review school testing ...
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Planning to Prevent School Violence

In a recent community forum the focus of the discussion was school violence. The audience was enthusiastic and involved, but ...
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After the Test – What Do We Do With the Rest of The Year?

Frank DeSensi | Founder/CIOEducational Directions I will admit that as an assistant principal, I did not consider the academic potential ...
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The Rhythm of the Learner Year: Opening of School

When we started working with schools as an external change agent, we immediately noticed a problem with school calendars. In ...
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Another Lesson Learned – Probing Beyond Raw Test Scores

A revelation came at a school where it appeared that very few students understood science. In the process of probing ...
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Is Knowing The Test Answer Enough? Another Lesson Learned From Years Of Academic Partnerships

During the early years of our company, we worked with several middle schools. Their data indicated social studies students were ...
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Turnaround School Test Results – Does Last Year’s Data Truly Represent This Years Student Population?

The answer - no. Not in all cases. The first issue that caused us to rethink our approach to using ...
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High Stakes Testing Conundrum – Turnaround Programs

Our book Turning Around Turnaround Schools is intended for those who work in or with turnaround schools, though the approach ...
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Educational Thinking – Moving From Inputs to Outputs

Our book Turning Around Turnaround Schools is intended for those who work in or with turnaround schools, though the approach ...
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