What classroom assessment practices will contribute most to understanding and improving student learning? And what is the role of the teacher leader in supporting student learning through effective assessment practices? Here are some effective strategies and tools. ..more
Your team needs your leadership more than ever. Here are the top three things you can be doing as you lead your team remotely. In our independent, international schools, teacher leaders are best positioned to have meaningful and lasting impact. ..more
By Bambi Betts, Director, Principals’ Training Center 22-May-20
After weeks of deliberation, we at the Principals' Training Center made the decision. We will not take our 28 international school professional learning “experiences” that were due to take place over a five-week period in Miami and Rome online. Impact? ..more
By Kristen MacConnell, Director of the Teacher Training Center Programs with the PTC 05-Mar-20
Due to the quickly spreading coronavirus, many schools in Asia and a growing number of schools in Europe have had to shift to short-term online learning to keep students, faculty, and families safe. Thousands of teachers are teaching online for the first time. ..more
Editor Meadow Dibble talks with Lydia Okutoro-Sack, who has just wrapped up her third year in Chennai, India teaching English to Grade 6 students. Lydia's previous position was in Kuwait, where she also taught middle school English for three years. ..more
Just about every day on my Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn feed, I find an article about the importance of Social and Emotional (SEL) teaching and learning in our K–12 schools. The research seems conclusive: SEL teaching and learning is not an add-on, but a vital component of a balanced K–12 curriculum to ensure student achievement and, ultimately, the development of healthy, successful citizens. ..more
Thirty years ago, the vision was simple and compelling: create practical training opportunities for practicing and aspiring principals in international schools. The PTC has stayed true to that vision over the course of three decades. ..more
A servant leader is a servant first. She enriches the lives of other individuals. She builds better organizations. A servant leader creates a more caring environment. The PTC has offered a great opportunity to develop the servant leadership attributes that I strive to embody. ..more
The Principals’ Training Center (PTC) is going back to its roots. The 2018 PTC Summer Institutes will be held in the very city where the organization held its inaugural event 30 years ago. ..more
The time has come for international schools to distinguish between ‘inclusion’ vs. ‘immersion’ for English learners. Rather than pull out English learners for compensatory services, classroom teachers need to be positioned as teacher leaders to ensure that all classrooms are responsive learning environments for English learners. ..more
At the end of the 2014-2015 school year, a small group of high school students expressed the desire to create a safe space for those who identified as members of the LGBTQ+ community and others with an interest in the topic. We didn't anticipate the controversy that this initiative would provoke. ..more
Department heads, grade-level leaders, instructional coaches, curriculum leaders, and others come to our Teacher Leader institutes asking: How do I run an effective meeting? How do I deal with teachers who don’t want to change? How do I support teachers in developing curriculum, assessment, instruction, etc. when I am not totally sure myself? ..more
As with all professionals, teachers and principals must continue to grow and learn. PTC and TTC, sister organizations of TIE, provide an array of professional development services to international schools, including workshops and other consulting services requested by individual schools. What are the top five professional growth areas requested by schools? We have tracked this over a decade; here is what we found for the past two years: ..more
How is it possible that we still debate whether or not student learning results should be included as pivotal data in determining the effectiveness of a teacher? How is it possible that a profession would even remotely consider the idea that its bottom line (learning) would not factor in when examining the most essential ingredient (teachers) of its success? ..more
I have never known a learner who was damaged when a teacher attempted to help him arrive at real understanding. On the other hand, I have known many who have been truly handicapped by teachers who interpret teaching primarily as telling. ..more
Over the years, I have had a variety of mentors and coaches, just as I have played the role of mentor or coach, always informally, for many talented educators. These experiences have led me to value and be so excited about the role of instructional coach, which many international schools are now embracing. ..more
Different schools approach the teacher leader role in different ways. At the TTC, we have been trying to support these current models through our Teacher Leader Institutes. We believe that all teacher leaders need basic training in organizational structures, communication, change processes, and facilitation. ..more
Have you ever been to a workshop where you learned new skills but no one at your school was aware of your true professional growth? A recent Teacher Leader Institute (TLI) addressed this and other concerns by piloting the use of micro-credentials. ..more
Information is power. This year, the pollsters, news agencies, and pundits got caught out with two big votes, and so many predictions seemed off. Our landscape of information has entered a level of Orwellian curation, and what is news, fact, or reality seems dictated by emotion and perspectives constructed from our own curated news feeds. ..more
Would kids learn better and retain more for longer periods if their learning came by way of an interdisciplinary approach? Are schools just stuck in a subject-based teaching model because that’s how we’ve always done things, or is this truly the better paradigm? ..more
"When I get home, I’ll ask Siri for the right answer," says a Kindergartner to her partner. "She always knows." A routine response in our classrooms? Or an important moment to understand that artificial intelligence (AI) has embedded itself in our day-to-day lives? ..more
"What makes us special?" writes Sue Easton. "That was my focus this summer—my first as Director of the Teacher Training Center (TTC). Even as a trainer, having always looked forward to heading to Miami or London each year, I knew that there was something that set it apart from other professional development opportunities. But what?" ..more
"At an early age I started traveling and was fascinated by the fact that people in other parts of the world live, talk and think differently. The more I traveled, the more I wanted to see, and not from the perspective of a tourist, but as a local." ..more
Sue Easton has just been named Director of the Teacher Training Center (TTC) and also works with the Teacher Leader Institute (TLI). For the past five years she served as a trainer with the Principals’ Training Center (PTC). ..more
TIE is launching a new series of international educator profiles, featuring participants of the PTC, TTC, and CTC. Meet Erika Velez, who with over a decade of experience working as a teacher and administrator overseas has a wealth of wisdom to share. ..more
Welcome to the “GAFA” (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon) world. The”GAFA” world is where most of humanity’s internet users and consumers work, communicate, socialize, learn, entertain themselves, and share, in services provided by one, two, three or all four of these companies. ..more
Recruiting season... a critical and careful process for every international school. And everyone is looking for that perfect teacher--the one with all the right skills, the right experience, and attention to their own professional development. ..more
Calling all experienced principals! Is your school a victim of “The Energy Vampires”? Join Kevin Bartlett and Bambi Betts in London, 12-14 July 2015. ..more
The Principals' Training Center has opened registration for its 2015 Summer Institutes in Miami and London (UK). The 29 programs include PTC, TTC and CTC courses, six of which have already filled. Anyone planning to take a PTC course should act quickly and register now at www.theptc.org. ..more
The PTC has been providing quality training for international educators for over 25 years. But it is what each participant does after leaving the comfort zone of our course that truly matters. We have learned a few things about how best to put PTC learning into practice. ..more
A group of admissions officers tries to make sense of the resounding "No" voiced by the families of new students when asked "Did your campus visit make you more likely to apply to the school?" Could all of that effort and attention truly have been for naught? ..more
Our lives are so embedded within the digital realm that the two have become inseparable. I invite us to use a new set of vocabularies to frame this paradigm: Appliances, Utilities, Information Flows, Ethics, and Algorithms. ..more
When I became an administrator later in my career, I thought that would mean I would stop being a counselor. Actually, I find my counseling background helps me be an even better administrator. ..more
See your English learners and their teachers for what they can do in the future, not for what they seemingly cannot do in the present. "All teachers are teachers of English learners," after all. ..more
Collectively, we have a responsibility to join the conversation about what makes an international school effective. We need deeper insight into the research, and the very design principles of our institutions. ..more
Writing recommendation letters is a quintessential opportunity to help teachers better understand why the practice of averaging must be fully eliminated. ..more
International schools are admitting students with more diverse learning needs and expectations. International school teachers need to be prepared for this diversity ..more
Yes, there is the Internet of Things: a world in parallel to ours where our devices, data, algorithms, gadgets, smart phones and digital tools interconnect, communicate, and work independently of our own input or monitoring. ..more
There is, and it is called online learning. Start re-orienting your thinking around this, says PTC facilitator John Mikton, or prepare for a future as an evolutionary casualty. ..more
Teacher Training Center course facilitator Theresa Cullen Hill explains why curriculum design is, or should be, an overarching preoccupation in international schools. ..more
Do we have a “responsibility problem” when it comes to breakthroughs in pedagogy? Any profession that wants to remain one has the moral obligation to swiftly integrate into its practice what its own research and experience reveal. ..more
Homework, at its core, is a concept—the notion of continuing the learning begun at school beyond the formal school day. It is not a separate, stand-alone practice. ..more