This post is part of Te@ch Thought’s 30 day blogging challenge.  The purpose of this challenge is to focus on reflective teaching. 

     Ahhhh!!!!  School started and then I promptly fell off of the blogging wagon!  I think that it doesn’t matter if I follow the challenge to the letter.  The important thing is that I reflect and think critically about my teaching!  That being said…let’s work on catching up!

Day 3: Discuss one “observation” area that you would like to improve on for your teacher evaluation.
     In New York State, our whole teacher evaluation process is so flawed.  I wish it was all about the teaching and what really happens inside the classroom.  This is why the topic of improving my observations is especially meaningful to me.
     I want to be better at questioning my students.   I want to not only ask better questions but I want to require more of my students to answer them.  I have this thing where I feel bad asking students questions who are shy or who I don’t think will know the answer.  So I don’t call on those students.  Which is not good.  Soooo, I am working on questioning this year. 
     I downloaded iLeap Pick a Student and I plan to use that randomly call on students.  I think that even the shy students might feel better knowing that it’s “chance” that I am calling on them rather than intentional.  Also, after rereading this I’m realizing that I need to toughen up.  My job is to make my students think and be accountable.  They will be better off and learn more-----which is the point, right?

Day 4: Respond: What do you love the most about teaching?
     The students.  Hands down.  They are the best part about teaching.  They make me laugh and inspire me and keep me young.  My brain works overtime to find ways to keep them interested and make sure that they have everything that they need to be successful.  Yup, it’s all about the students!

Day 5: Post a picture of your classroom, and describe what you see–and what you don’t see that you’d like to.
     When I was in the throws of flipped mastery in the spring I really wanted to change my classroom set-up.  When everyone was working at their own pace I thought about how cool it would be to have bean bag chairs around the room for students to curl up and work.  When my students were working together on projects, I wished that I had tables in my classroom or at least desks that could be grouped together easier.  I had to move away from flipped mastery this fall. I’ll probably be talking more about this in a future post.  As a result, I’m not so big on the bean bag chairs right now.  Tables still sound pretty cool…
     Otherwise, I love my classroom.  I think it’s the prettiest high school classroom ever!  It’s very me.  It’s busy and colorful and there are presidents that are there to help me teach.  I plan to add more presidents in the future.

Day 6: Explain: What does a good mentor “do”?
     It is now a requirement in NYS that new teachers have a mentor for several years.  When I started teaching, my district did not have a mentor requirement.  As a result, I’ve never had a real mentor.  I’ve had people that I have bounced ideas off of or asked for advice but I’ve never had anyone that I felt I could go to 24/7.
     So, if I could have had a mentor---what would I have expected from them?  I think that I learn best from observation.  I wish that I could have been partnered with someone who I could have observed teaching.  To actually see how a master teacher works and then get to sit down and have a discussion about that teaching----how amazing is that?

Day 7: Who was or is your most inspirational colleague, and why?
     This one is a hard one!  I have had a lot of teachers who I really respect and who have inspired me to try new things.  I can think of 2 teachers in my department who I often think “I want to be more like them”.  One of them has been teaching 5 years longer than me.  He still has the “joy”.  He is energetic----seriously energetic.  We often joke that he should not be allowed to drink coffee.  His love of teaching shines through every day to his students who love him right back.  He is joyful AND he is a great teacher who likes to try new things but has the fundamentals down pat.  He’s actually achieved a 100% pass rate for his students on the Regents exam.  Twice.  I may actually hate him a little bit. ;)
     The other teacher that comes to mind is someone who has been teaching a few years less than me.  She’s so good that when our principal wants to target a group of students to get better results, she is chosen to teach them.  This means that she’s been required to teach a bunch of different things and some of them are not necessarily her favorite classes.  That doesn’t seem to matter though.  She works her butt off to make her class interesting, even when the topic is not one that she is passionate about.  She is so creative in designing lessons!  Not only are these lessons fun but they’re functional too.  The students are learning.  Also, she’s great with parental contact.  I need to take a page out of her book for that one.
      I feel honored to work with these two very inspiring teachers.

Day 8: What’s in your desk drawer, and what can you infer from those contents?
      Can you believe that our desks don’t have drawers?  They’re basically just tables with computers on them.  I have a filing cabinet that has old files in it.  I’m not a paper kind of person---I’m all about the technology.  I have closets in my classroom that are full of all kinds of things: posters to rotate onto my walls, past examples of students’ work, arts and crafts supplies, cleaning supplies, and tons of dry erase markers.  What does this say about me?  I think it mostly says I’m a packrat! 

Question: What’s the biggest buzz in education?  
Answer: Anything that has to do with technology.  

     I am someone who grew up with computers.  I was one of 
those students who used the internet as a source in high 
school and my teacher had no idea how I should cite it in 
my paper (because it was new).  My Master’s is in 
Curriculum Development and Instructional Technology and I 
have NEVER written my lesson plans or student grades on 
paper planbooks or gradebooks.  Technology has been a given for my teaching for my entire career.
     This is not the case for some of the teachers that I work with.  I know of teachers who struggle with our electronic grading system and are mystified by smart phones.  Using Google Drive is not a time saver for them, it’s a chore.  They do not use technology in their teaching because they aren’t intelligent enough or because they don’t care enough about their students.  The reasons these teachers don’t use technology because it is unfamiliar to them and they don’t know where to begin to find something that will be useful for both them and their students.  
     Enter Graphite.  As I mentioned in my August 28th post, I am in the Graphite Accelerator Program.  The specific program I am in is sponsored by NYSCATE which is the New York State affiliate of ISTE.  
     So what is Graphite?  According to their website: “Graphite™ is a free service from nonprofit Common Sense Education designed to help preK-12 educators discover, use, and share the best apps, games, websites, and digital curricula for their students by providing unbiased, rigorous ratings and practical insights from our active community of teachers.”

     What a great service?!? Graphite (a subsidiary of Common Sense Media  and Common Sense Education) employs “professional educators” to review a variety of technology products ranging from websites, apps, and programs.  These educators rate each product in the categories of engagement, pedagogy, and supports.  They discuss the pros and cons as well as how the product works or functions.  The products are categorized and searchable based on content area and skill set such as thinking and reasoning or creativity.  There’s even a “Common Core Explorer” search function.  Then, teachers---like you and me---can also review these products by writing Field Notes.  
     This means that teachers like me who are comfortable with technology can share our knowledge of what works and what doesn’t.  We can also learn about new resources and save some time with new products based on the experiences of other teachers.  Teachers who fall into the category of “don’t know where to start” can actually find a place to start!  Beyond reviews and field notes there are App Flows which are written by teachers as actual lesson plans using educational technology.
     After I finish the Graphite Accelerator Program I am planning on becoming a Graphite Certified Educator.  You can do this too!  As more teachers review products on Graphite, the richer a resource it will become.  You will be helping educators around the world to introduce technology into their instruction that will be meaningful for their students.  Talk about 21st Century Skills!
     I hope that you will check out my Graphite profile and see what I’ve been working on and I hope that you will also consider contributing to Graphite with Field Notes about your own educational technology experiences.  I hope that Graphite will also be a means for you to try some new things in your classroom and to expand your own instructional horizons.  

*One last thought for my New York State friends: participating in a project like Graphite is great for your APPR.  Our district uses the Danielson rubric and contributing and using Graphite could certainly fall under several domains, particularly Domain 4: Professional Development.  Why not get credit for sharing your knowledge?

     A lot of good things have happened for me professionally this year.  Being selected to attend the APA/Clark University Workshop for High School Teachers and the Library of Congress Summer Teacher Institute were certainly high points.  Being allowed to host two Twitter chats (#psychat 9/4 and #sschat on 11/4) are icing on the cake!
     My Twitter PLN (lovingly called my tweeps) already know the value of Twitter for professional development.  Many of my Facebook friends and school colleagues, however, still need some convincing or at the very least a starting point as to how to make the best use of Twitter. 
     One note before we formally get started----I only use Twitter professionally.  I don’t talk about my non-school experiences, politics, friends, food, etc.  I also do not use Twitter with my students although many teachers do.
     Thus, I now present: The Clemens Twitter Guide to Professional Development! *Please imagine a curtain being lifted and roaring applause at this point.
     First: Sign up for Twitter.  You can do this online or via an app on your smart phone or tablet.  Be sure to choose a good user name.  This is important because this is how you will be known in the Twitter Universe.  If you can’t use your real name, use something that is representative of who you are professionally.  Basically, don’t choose a handle such as @sexybeast, people won’t take you seriously.  
     Also, be sure to put something descriptive of you professionally for your profile.  Mine says “I'm a hs social studies teacher (USH & Psych this year), VP of my local teachers union, and follower of all things education especially tech.”  You should add a picture for your profile as well because often times spammers just have the egg as their profile picture. 
     Second: Follow some people.  My best advice is to first follow someone with the handle @cybraryman1.  This is Jerry Blumengarten who is a retired social studies teacher from NYC but basically knows everything there is to know about educational technology.  His website, http://cybraryman.com, is chock full of information on all areas of education for students, parents, and especially teachers.  After you follow Jerry, go to his page of PLN All Stars and follow people from the subject(s) you are interested in.  That will give you a great start.  You might even want to take a look at who some of those people follow and follow even more people!  The way I use Twitter, following more people means I get more information from a diverse set of people.  You can look at who I follow to get some ideas as well.  I have mine followers broken down into lists such as Social Studies Teachers, Psychology Teachers, Teachers who Flip, etc.  
     Third: Take part in a chat.  Chatting is the best way to dive in to Twitter.  You will see how everyone formats their Tweets, meet new people to follow, and most important learn a ton!  I typically end up with 20-30 additional browser tabs open during a chat due to all of the information that is being shared! It’s amazing and a little bit overwhelming when you first get started but it is easy to get the hang of and an invaluable resource.   You can find a calendar of Twitter chats here.
     Let’s take a minute to discuss how to chat most effectively.  Trying to chat on the Twitter website or using the Twitter app will most likely be impossible.  The chats just move too fast and are too difficult to follow that way.  There are two good options for chatting: TweetDeck using a computer (available as a website or as a Chrome App) and HootSuite (available as an Android and iPhone/iPad app).  I prefer using TweetDeck because it updates faster and because I am constantly getting links that I need to open tabs for.  Both work well and are the main ways that people take part in chats.  

     Above is a screenshot of my Tweetdeck.  As you can see, I have several columns going.  Twitter works via hashtags (#) and so my columns are hashtag based.  When participating in a Social Studies Chat (#sschat) I can follow only the discussion taking place in the chat by following my #sschat column.  The chat is still fast paced and I might still miss something, but I will get the majority of what’s going on there.  Most chats have their discussions archived for future use such as the Social Studies Chat Ning which houses the World History and World Geography and U.S. Government and Civics chats as well.  That way, even if you miss something or miss the chat altogether, you can still get all of the information.
     Fourth: Don’t become fixated on missing stuff.  Twitter is worldwide and thus people are tweeting 24/7.  You have a life, you are going to miss stuff----it’s okay!  You can make sure that when you are looking for information that it is easier to find.  Even though a chat normally only takes place once a week, people use the chat hashtag to post information about a topic all of the time.  It’s another way that you can get great professional development.  For example, one of my posts was about the NY Times Learning Network: 14 Ways to Use The Learning Network This School Year http://zite.to/14nNIBr  via @zite #sschat.  Adding #sschat tagged the post so that people following that tag could easily find it.  For a list of popular Twitter hashtags go here.

     There are two great ways to keep up-to-date on Tweets.  You can use your TweetDeck columns to scroll back and see posts you missed when you weren’t online.  This is not my preferred method but if you don’t have a tablet it may be the best option for you.  Since I have an iPad, I use Flipboard which is available for both Android and iPad.  I love Flipboard because it turns your twitter timeline into a magazine!  You can view all of your twitter followers’ tweets as a whole or search just by hashtag or just by a particular person! It’s handy and easy to then either retweet, email to yourself, or open on the internet.
     There are many resources on the internet that are geared towards assisting teachers with getting the most out of Twitter as a professional resource.  I can only say that it is thrilling to meet your tweeps in person after talking to them for months online, it’s exhilarating to have people to discuss ideas with who share your passion, and it’s amazing to see what is available outside of your everyday experiences.     *By the way- taking part in Twitter chats is a great way to fulfill Domain 4d on the Danielson Rubric for  Participating in a professional community and 4e Growing and developing professionally.  I have been keeping track of my participation in chats for our district's required Artifact!

     Every year I have my students complete an exit survey.  I love getting to see what the students liked or felt was useful as well as what students did not enjoy or believed was not worthwhile.  I typically plug in the numbers into excel, take a look, and make changes as needed.  I share my findings with my co-teacher but never anyone else.
     This year, I decided to improve my survey—more questions, more room for free responses, more critical thinking.  I also decided to move away from paper forms which were tedious to tabulate and created a Google Form for students to fill out.  This was a great success!  The students seemed to be more thoughtful in their responses and truly enjoyed filling out the surveys on their electronic devices.
     Additionally, I decided I really needed to share the results.  Who better than my new students and their parents?!?  So, I thought about the best way to present the findings.  Some of the information I will hold back for closer to Regents time since it had to do with review methods.  Some of the info is more for my co-teacher and me to improve the class.  I choose information to present that will help to let students learn about the class and what makes it different from other US History classes in the building. 
     I used Piktochart to create an infographic.  I’m not sure that it’s quite what I wanted it to look like but it gave me a good start at learning a new skill.  I’m actually thinking about integrating a requirement for infographics in future student assignments.  I’ll be sure to give an update as to the reactions of my students and their parents once the school year starts!
     By the way, surveys such as this are great for Danielson 1b: Knoweldge of Students, 4a: Reflecting on Teaching, and 4c: Communicating with Families.

PS-  I tried to embed the infographic here but for some reason I couldn't get it to work!  I did get it to work here if you would like to view it more clearly.

     I mentioned back in April that I was inspired by a teacher, Amy Balling, who was using her blog to illustrate the creative ways that she is addressing the Danielson Rubric and her district’s APPR.  I know that there are flaws in the evaluation process, obviously, but I also know that we’re going to be dealing with the APPR for the long haul; especially since it is now part of NYS law not just a policy of the week. 
     Thus, I too have tried to “love the one I’m with” and be as creative and thoughtful as possible in my own relationship with the APPR. In April I shared with you the link to my first attempt at being creative with my Teacher Artifact (my 2nd attempt was a lot better and shorter).  Our district breaks up the 60 points not associated with student testing as follows: 25 points for our Announced Observation, 15 points for our Unannounced Observation, and 20 points for our Teacher Artifact.  For the 2012-2013 school year we had artifacts we were required to turn in associated with our observations and a choice artifact.  The choices were a bit limited and overlapped many of the areas that were previously evaluated during our observations. 
     To fully illustrate our competence in all aspects of the rubric we really needed to submit an additional artifact or artifacts.  I decided that I would be a little different than other folks and get creative with my additional artifact and create a website using Google Sites.  I happened to be working on a project for my district that required me to use Google Sites and I thought that this would be a great way for me to get acquainted with the format.  *Side note, I really am not a huge fan of Google Sites compared with Weebly.  Google Sites just doesn't seem intuitive to me and I was constantly searching for the menu I needed to format the way I wanted to.  Weebly may be more closed in its formatting but the ease of use completely makes up for that.  But I digress…
     When I created my Google Site for my final artifact submission, I incorporated my required Choice Artifact and addressed the other aspects of the Danielson Rubric in a sort of portfolio format.  For example, to illustrate Domain 1b, Knowledge of Students, I discussed four ways that I monitor students’ progress, work with my inclusion teacher to address students’ individual needs, etc. AND I attached a folder of files with surveys I have conducted of my students and their results.  This way my administrator could have the evidence based information he needed to evaluate me on that aspect of the rubric.
     As it turns out, I did quite well on my overall Artifact score!  I haven’t yet received my summative APPR score for the school year which includes the student test performance.  That, needless to say, will be a very fascinating score to receive and could be the topic of numerous posts in the future!  Even though many of my colleagues submitted much less time consuming artifacts than I did and received similar scores, I do not regret doing the extra work.  I think that I will most likely do something similar next school year but with a slightly different format: maybe a wiki or livebinder.  I will also start my artifact in the beginning of the school year since I understand the process a whole lot better this time around. 
     Please feel free to click on the picture above or here to visit my artifact.  I would love to have feedback so that I can improve for the future.  And honestly, isn't improvement what this whole APPR thing is supposed to be about anyway?

     As a teacher in New York State at the start of the 4th marking quarter there are two big things that are constantly on my mind: the Regents Exam and the APPR.  These things do not necessarily bring the ideas of spring and renewal to the mind but they are a part of the world that I live in.  I could fight it or be really mad but I find that is a waste of my precious energy. And thus, I have accepted and to an extent embraced the APPR.
     About a month ago, I happened upon the blog of Amy Balling, a Bio teacher at Lancaster HS in NYS.  Her district is using the Danielson rubric for teacher evaluations just like my district is.  In addition to blogging about teaching and her family she discusses how she has been working towards meeting each of the aspects of the rubric.  It is fairly obvious that she too has embraced the APPR process and has even had a bit of fun with it.  And that got me thinking that I’d like to have some fun as well!
     To that end, I decided that I would try to get creative with my submissions of teacher artifacts.  Our district allows us to submit artifacts which illustrate our effectiveness beyond classroom observations.  I knew I wanted to talk about my class website but instead of writing about it I decided to create a screencast about it.  This was a great experience for me.  I’m planning on flipping some of my classes so screencasting was excellent practice.
     I think that I might take a page out of Amy Balling’s book and start discussing here how I’m meeting the requirements of the APPR.  That way we can all have fun with Charlotte Danielson together!