Gene Lee

Improving Student Talk through Coaching

Common studies suggest we spend at least 80 percent of our waking hours in some form of communication throughout the day, with the majority of that being in conversation — speaking and listening. In classrooms and schools, we find these measures almost to be inverted, where conversations yield to long, one-sided inputs from teacher andread more

Developing Effective Plans for Special Education Students

The purpose of special education is to enable students to successfully develop to their fullest potential by providing a free appropriate public education in compliance with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. The IEP creates an opportunity for teachers, parents, school administrators, related services personnel, and students (when appropriate) to work together to improve educationalread more

Empowering ELA Teachers to Common Core Align

The recent era of school reform has ushered in an opportunity for instructional leaders to be creative about how they respond to increasing demands to close the achievement gap.  Many schools have been designed or redesigned to better meet students’ needs by offering learning that is personalized or project-based, as both of these practices offerread more

Developing Elementary Principals into Instructional Leaders for Science

Districts across the nation are at an exciting moment of implementing the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), which lay out a learning trajectory from kindergarten through 12th grade through which students develop deep conceptual understanding of the natural and manmade world as well as the skills required in the fields of science and engineering. Withread more

Standards Based Math Instruction in Upper Elementary

Eureka Elementary, a district run school located in Oakland, California, is home to approximately 275 students of diverse backgrounds, including an influx of newcomers from Latin America and the Middle East. With historically low test scores in math, the coach team conducted several observations, gathering data to determine the root causes for our unacceptable performanceread more

Planning as a Tool for Anticipating Learning Needs to Reach Desired Outcomes for ALL Students

Teacher practices and experiences are often tremendously different whether in terms of a novice versus expert teacher.  As we know, there is a massive teacher shortage in the United States.   With this being said, it is our responsibility as educational leaders to support novice teachers and diminish the divided knowledge between novice and expert teachers.read more

English Language Development: Improving the Academic Achievement and Accessibility for Young English Learners

The manipulation of language for multiple purposes is an important skill for children to acquire during their educational careers.  In the United States, children must master the use of the English Language for several purposes: asking and answering questions, comparing and contrasting ideas, items, situation; explaining and through Common Core Standards, the ability to makeread more

Standards Based Math Instruction in Upper Elementary

Eureka Elementary, a district run school located in California, is home to approximately 275 students of diverse backgrounds, including an influx of newcomers from Latin America and the Middle East. With historically low test scores in math, the coach team conducted several observations, gathering data to determine the root causes for our unacceptable performance onread more

Building Instructional Capacity to Meet the Needs of English Learners

The number of English Language Learners (ELLs) and newcomers make up a significant and growing percentage of school aged students and are the fastest-growing segment of the student population, with their growth highest in the secondary grade levels. (Batalova, J and McHugh, Margie, 2010). Approximately three out of four English Language Learners in grades 6read more

Improving Lesson Planning to Increase Student Learning

Lesson planning is a vital component of teaching and learning that provides teachers a framework to guide their lesson progression with the purpose of students mastering the lesson objective. Lesson planning is also another tool to support novice teachers with basic classroom management. The planning process allows teachers to be more confident and foreshadow anyread more