What Are the 21st-Century Skills Every Student Needs? 
The gap between the skills people learn and the skills people need is becoming more obvious, as traditional learning falls short of equipping students with the knowledge they need to thrive, according to the World Economic Forum report New Vision for Education: Fostering Social and Emotional Learning Through Technology.

Today's job candidates must be able to collaborate, communicate and solve problems - skills developed mainly through social and emotional learning (SEL). Combined with traditional skills, this social and emotional proficiency will equip students to succeed in the evolving digital economy.    >>READ MORE  
8 Tremendous Ways to Develop a Growth Mindset


The truth is having a  fixed mindset as the name implies, increases the limitations you have in your life.

Optimists believe the glass is half full whilst pessimists believe it's empty. The same can be said for those with a fixed mindset vs a  growth mindset.

The expert in mindset is  Dr. Carol S. Dweck, a Stanford University psychologist. Dweck tells us that those with a fixed mindset firmly believe that intellect is static whilst those with a growth mindset strongly affirm that intellect evolves.

In Dweck's book:  'Mindset - Changing the way you think to fulfill your potential'. She explains the differences between the lives of those with a fixed mindset and growth mindset.

5 Resources for Cracking the Code of 21st Century Learning


Giving students opportunities to learn through coding prepares them for innumerable future opportunities in our digital world.

In a society and workforce that is ever-changing, the most important career preparation a teacher can provide is fostering a love of learning and aiding students in keeping that spark for lifelong learning ignited. Many of tomorrow's careers are nonexistent today, but the foundational skills they will require and the mindset for being successful within them can be laid today. Along with reading, writing, and arithmetic, a firm grasp of coding can take students far in their future endeavors. These 5 coding resources are the perfect way to expose students to this much needed 21 st century skill.     >>READ MORE
20 Books By Teachers, for Teachers to Inspire Your Teaching


1. Teach Like a PIRATE: This book is part inspirational manifesto that ignites passion for the profession and part practical road map filled with dynamic strategies to dramatically increase student engagement. Teach Like a PIRATE's message resonates with educators who want to design outrageously creative lessons and transform school into a life-changing experience for students.

2. Pure Genius: Author Don Wettrick explains how collaboration-with experts, students, and other educators-can help you create interesting, and even life-changing opportunities for learning. Wettrick's book inspires and equips educators with a systematic blueprint for teaching innovation in any school.

3. P is for PIRATE: Husband and wife team Dave and Shelley Burgess encourage and inspire educators to make their classrooms fun and exciting places to learn. Tapping into years of personal experience, and drawing on the insights of more than 70 educators, the authors offer a wealth of ideas for making learning and teaching more fulfilling than ever before.

4. Learn Like a PIRATE: Author Paul Solarz explains how to design classroom experiences that encourage students to take risks and explore their passions in a stimulating, motivating, and supportive environment where improvement, rather than grades, is the focus. Discover how student-led classrooms help students thrive and develop into self-directed, confident citizens.

5. Ditch That Textbook: Author Matt Miller encourages educators to throw out meaningless, pedestrian teaching and learning practices. It empowers them to evolve and improve on old, standard teaching methods. Ditch That Textbook is a support system, toolbox, and manifesto to help educators free their teaching and revolutionize their classrooms.

6. 50 Things You Can Do with Google Classroom: Authors Alice Keeler and Libbi Miller shorten the tech integration learning curve by providing a thorough overview of the Google Classroom app. Complete with screenshots, this book provides ideas and step-by-step instruction to help teachers encourage student collaboration, seamlessly use other Google tools, such as Google Docs, provide timely feedback to students and more.

Fostering Identity Safety in School

An environment where students are not bullied based on their race or other aspects of identity can be intentionally cultivated both inside and outside of the classroom.

School is a young person's world for many of the hours of their youth, and identity-based bullying -- based on a student's race, sex, ethnicity, gender identity, religion, mental or physical disability, or other characteristics -- can make that world a deeply negative experience. Everyone in the school needs to feel that they matter -- not in spite of , but because of  who they are. That is the feeling of identity safety.

An identity-safe school is a place where everyone feels physically and emotionally safe. Students have a sense that they belong and that people have their back. This kind of environment can be intentionally cultivated in all learning experiences, both inside and outside of the classroom. It encompasses how adults treat students, how students treat one another, and how adults treat other adults.   >>READ MORE
2  Fantastic, Upcoming Education Conferences

3  Tongue Twisters

Leah Logan Lively Laughed Loud

Captain Cooke Cooked a Crab Casserole

Mighty Meaghan Met Mighty Morgan in the Morning
How Can Middle Schools Best Organize to Help Young Adolescents Thrive?

Middle school is tough. Bodies change. Hormones rage. Algebra becomes a reality. But there are things schools can do to make life easier for students - like this  big study we wrote about showing that K-8 schools may be better for kids than traditional middle schools.

But aside from re-configuring an entire school system, are there other ways to make the sixth-grade experience better?

To answer that question, I called up Dru Tomlin, a director at the Association for Middle Level Education - an organization that's been researching best practices for middle grade students for decades. Tomlin knows middle school: He's been a middle school teacher, an administrator, and he's the parent of a seventh-grade student.   >>READ MORE
4  Inspiring Quotes

The more that you read, the more things you will know.
The more you learn, the more places you'll go! 
- Dr. Seuss

It is better to be a failure at something you love
than to be a success at something you hate. 
- George Burns

How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment 
before starting to improve the world.
 - Anne Frank

Play is our brain's favorite way of learning. 
- Diane Ackerman
Professional Development Toolkit for Teachers
(Leadership, Teamwork, Communication, Customer Service, Building Relationships)

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M. H. West & Co., Inc. | 804.782.1938 | [email protected]
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