I am currently proud to be the Principal of Washington Jr. High School in Bentonville, Arkansas.
My career in education began as a teacher and a coach in 1989. I became an administrator in 1997 and since then I have served in a variety of capacities including:
One of my professional passions is to help move our school/district forward in the area of creating "meaningful" learning experiences for students. I would define meaningful learning as a focus on skills that live on well past the next exam and are clearly relevant to students. Meaningful learning asks students to use higher levels of thinking to solve real problems, create actual products, for an authentic audience.
In addition, I have always believed that technology can play an integral role in the ability of educators to allow students to make their learning more meaningful if the technology is used to accomplish tasks that wouldn't be possible without it.
I also believe that technology can have a tremendous impact on the professional development and growth of educators. That is especially the case when modern tools are used to help create a professional learning network that taps into the expertise of leaders from around the globe.
Therefore, I continually expand my personal learning network and constantly strive to model the effective use of emerging tools for teachers and administrators by conducting workshops and by consistently sharing resources and thoughts through Inside The Wildcat Way, Tim's Top Tech Finds, The Connected Administrator, my Twitter account, my Diigo Library, and a Flipboard magazine called WJHS Learns.
I believe that education is the most important profession. Our purpose extends beyond the academic achievement of our students as measured by standardized tests. We must create learning environments that are relevant to the lives that we are helping prepare our students for and stimulate their desire and capacity to become lifelong learners.