by Cotter Donnell The end of the academic year always feels so full – full of fun events, big emotions, and new ideas. I don’t know about you, but my mind has been running in overdrive for the last few weeks! Here are a few things that have caught my attention. Enjoy! Making time for…
Thank you to Patrick Farmer for sharing his REAL life with us! Patrick is a reading/language arts and social studies teacher at Nativity Preparatory School in Boston, Massachusetts. Here are his thoughts on discussion, R.E.A.L.®, and learning. Current City, School, Teaching Assignments: 6th grade Reading/Language Arts and Social Studies Lead Teacher at Nativity Preparatory School…
R.E.A.L.® PD is not just any PD. Our game-changing professional development for Humanities teams is embedded, research-backed, and impact-guaranteed. In this case study, we’re diving deep into our PD sequence: how it’s designed, what it looks like, and how it feels for our faculty. Read on to learn more!
One of the best parts of our job is seeing how the skills students learn from the R.E.A.L.® program directly affect their performance in class and elsewhere. Our dashboards allow us to gain insight into how students grow in multiple ways — in how they participate in class, in their comfort in expressing themselves, in…
Ellie Walsh-Moots is a Social Studies teacher, former department chair (and Jeopardy! Teachers Tournament quarterfinalist!) who lives in Nashville, Tennessee. She is passionate about studying middle leadership – that is, the experience of school leaders who maintain teaching responsibilities – within schools. A Fulbright Distinguished Awards in Teaching Grantee, Ellie spent part of 2022 researching…
Everyone everywhere is talking about the power of AI – and we’re inviting middle and high school student voices to join that conversation with The First Annual R.E.A.L. ® Discussion National Essay Contest. We invite the thousands students who have used R.E.A.L.® this year to submit an essay that touches on at least two of…
Thank you to Callie Hammond for sharing her REAL life with us! Callie is an English teacher at Duchesne Academy of the Sacred Heart in Houston, Texas. Here are her thoughts on discussion, R.E.A.L.®, and learning. Hometown: Concord, NC Current City, School, Teaching Assignments: Houston, Texas at Duchesne Academy of the Sacred Heart. Currently a…
by Cotter Donnell Welcome to the latest installment of Cotter’s Blotter, a recurring blog post where I share some of the education resources, interesting ideas, and captivating questions we’re thinking about at R.E.A.L.® Here’s a quick roundup of some of the ideas that have been on my mind and some of the things we’ve been…
Empowering girls to use their voices has always been mission-critical for Girls Preparatory School (GPS), an independent day school for girls in grades 6-12 based in Chattanooga, TN. We partnered with GPS to create a school-wide Conversation Culture that would activate voices throughout the entire community. Read on to learn more!
by Dr. Ralph Covino They say that no battle plan survives contact with the enemy. Such was the case with my first set of R.E.A.L.® Discussions. To prepare, my girls had gone through each of the skills and – conceptually anyway – knew how to Relate, Excerpt, Ask, and Listen, understood the pass-off protocol, and…