On Fridays I like to share the things that help me as a leader and a learner. Please join in by sharing what you are loving lately!

• Twitter, Tweetdeck and Hashtags, oh my! – I’ve celebrated all of these ideas in previous Friday posts. Today I love how these have built a community within my large district, and how more and more educators are connecting through the Twitterverse. I love seeing new colleagues find value in Twitter. This week one of our schools did a Twitter chat during their Tech Tuesday lunch!

• The Instructional Core – In the book Instructional Rounds by City, Elmore, Fiarman and Teitel, the instructional core is defined by the interaction between teacher, students, and content, in support of a task that demonstrates learning (see visual below). I first read this book about 6 years ago now, and then spent a long time delving into the instructional core in my last job. At a conference last week, one of the presenters mentioned this as a foundation of their work and my first thought was, “How could I forget that?”.  The instructional core helps ground leaders in discussions about what they are seeing in classrooms. It helps teachers in PLCs when planning purposefully to meet students’ needs. It helps students get clarity on the purpose of the tasks they complete.

These remind me that we don’t always need something new and shiny to motivate us. We can reflect back on books and resources we’ve used in the past and determine how they have relevance in our current work. Maybe these updates will become Flashback Fridays!