“Break a leg!’ I said this to our 10 year old son, many years ago, before he was about to go on stage to perform and sing a solo in front of an audience of 300. He was horrified. He looks up at me with tears in his eyes and cried, “Why would you want […]

If you have exams coming up, there is an art to revising and studying in the last few weeks and days. “The challenge is most people study for input – not output,” says Gretchen Wegner, an Academic Life Coach. The process of being able to pass an exam is all about retrieval of information. What […]

Decision fatigue. That’s one of the main reasons I was so exhausted! Some days even the smallest decisions seemed impossible. Just like the meme going around on Social Media – I had 375 tabs open in my brain and was trying to juggle, multi-task, be everything to everyone. What should I have for breakfast? Lunch? […]

The Cultural Force of Interactions… In one of the most powerful educational TED talks, Rita Pierson’s ‘Every Kid Needs a Champion,’ she clearly articulates the need for teachers to develop significant positive relations with their students. She talks about the value and importance of human connection. “Kids don’t learn from people they don’t like,” she […]

Understanding the job market for our youth… The future is not what it used to be. I was recently asked to speak at a High School Careers day. The school had invited professionals to come and speak about their jobs, with the aim to help inspire and inform students of career choices for their future. […]

Most of us avoid conflict – maybe we have been conditioned to or maybe wired to, neuroscience has answers for both sides. Lately, however it seems more and more choosing to be uncomfortable is the best choice to make, for the sake of humanity and the planet. I was recently on a flight from Wellington […]

Reading is a key activity for learning, whether you are reading a novel, play, academic text, a text book or instructions from the Internet, kindle or a paper book. Often, the pages and pages of text can seem overwhelming. The great news is there are many ways to read different types of text. Fiction and […]

According to a Harvard study of communication, it only takes seven seconds to make a first impression. Your classroom environment communicates many things about your teaching style, and the learning going on in the classroom. Ron Ritchhart asserts your classroom environment sends messages to your students about what you value, how you think learning happens […]

Team teaching can be both an incredible privilege and challenge all at the same time! One teacher recently described team teaching as going on a blind date and getting married! And it can be like that. However, with some simple structures and strategies team teaching can be the best teaching years of your career. Let’s […]

If great thinking & learning is a part of your agenda for your students, it seems obvious, you need to give them opportunities to think & learn. Ron Ritchhart describes this as ‘Crafting the Vehicles for Learning’. He goes on to say, “Without the right vehicles, learning slows down, loses momentum and in some cases […]