This post is part 15 of Te@ch Thought’s 30 day blogging challenge.  The purpose of this challenge is to focus on reflective teaching. 


Day 15: Name three strengths you have as an educator.

You can say nice things about yourself.  You can say nice things about yourself.  You can say nice things about yourself…Okay, here goes:

1. I love professional development and learning new things about teaching and education.  During the 2013-2014 school year I engaged in 152 hours of professional development which included conferences, twitter chats, webinars, and in-services.  I work really hard to implement the things that I learn into my teaching because how horrible would it be for me to be learning all of this stuff and not put it into practice!
   
2. I make a huge effort to connect with my students and learn about them as people.  I believe in the students getting to know me as a person as well.  I think that when relationships are built where students and teachers can see each other as real humans (you know, the ones with feelings and lives outside of the school building), the classroom experience is more positive and ultimately more effective.  No, I’m not friending my students on Facebook or hanging out with them outside of school.  I’m just taking time to listen to their stories and spending a few minutes to tell some of my stories.
3. I don’t give up.  I’ve had tough classes throughout my career.  And yes, I’ve gotten frustrated and questioned my abilities and even my purpose as a teacher.  But, I come back the next day and try again.  If things aren’t working, I change it up.  If I feel like I’m losing the students, I ask them what they think is happening and what they think that we can do together to make things better.  When I feel defeated, I have people I talk to both in my school and in my extended PLN to get advice.  It’s really hard to keep going sometimes but it’s what I have to do because I can’t give up!
   

This post is part 14 of Te@ch Thought’s 30 day blogging challenge.  The purpose of this challenge is to focus on reflective teaching. 

Day 14: What is feedback for learning, and how well do you give it to students?

     Learning is the process of acquiring knowledge.  There’s a lot of ways to acquire knowledge.  As teachers, we are taught about the ways that are most and least effective to pass on knowledge to our students.  It’s kind of intuitive, right?  Lecture is not high on the effectiveness scale.  Learning by doing or teaching others is high on the effectiveness scale.  It just makes sense.
     Then, there’s another part to the learning process; learning what works and what doesn’t AND learning why things work and why they don’t work.  This is feedback and it is essential for learning to take place. 
     Feedback is the lifeblood of teachers and we most commonly associate it with the grading process.  We let the students know what they got wrong and what the right answers are.  When we grade essays, we let the students know how they can improve and what to keep doing for next time.  It’s not just grading where we provide feedback.  When we ask students questions we’re providing feedback too.  When we provide detailed and constructive feedback we are moving the learning process forward for our students.
     If I had to rate my effectiveness in providing feedback, I’d say it’s a mixed bag. 
     In class, I’m really good.  I try hard to explain to students why their answers are right or wrong and make sure they understand why they’re right or wrong.  This leads to a lot of productive class discussions where I feel like I can actually see the wheels turning in my students’ heads.
     In tests, homework, and essays I’m good in that I provide detailed feedback.  The problem is that I don’t always get the feedback back to the students as quickly as I should.  That’s the thing with feedback; students need it as soon as possible for it to have the greatest impact.  It’s one of those things that I know and strive to provide but somehow always have problems with.  I’m the worst with essays.  I hate grading them because I do provide so much feedback that I tend to put them at the bottom of my to-do list.  This is a really important area that I need to work on so that I can provide my students with the best opportunities to learn.
     This year, I vow to improve the quality, quantity, and turn-around time of the feedback I provide. 

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

I’m still working on catching up with my blog posts---all reflection, all of the time!!!

Day 9: Write about one of your biggest accomplishments in your teaching that no one knows about (or may not care).
      This feels a little like bragging.  Some days, I think that my biggest accomplishment is that I’m still teaching and trying new things and not getting discouraged when everything seems to be going wrong.  The past two years haven’t been great for me and there are definitely days where I think about retirement (which is only a short 19 years away).  Maybe it’s not “bright and shiny” but it is an accomplishment to still be teaching and loving teaching when the going gets tough!
     If I were in more of a bragging mode, I might mention that I got to reach one of my professional goals last school year.  I presented two sessions at the New York State Council of the Social Studies 2014 Conference this March!  It was pretty awesome and I truly felt honored to be chosen among all of the other applicants.

Day 10
·        Share five random facts about yourself.
I’m left-handed, red-headed, love chocolate, am an obsessive viewer of Grey’s Anatomy (guilty pleasure), and wear size 12 shoe (it sucks).
·        Share four things from your bucket list.
It’s all about travel: visit the UK, Italy, France, and all 50 US states.
·        Share three things that you hope for this year, as a “person” or an educator.
Have a life outside of school, get back my teaching “joy”, be the best teacher I can be!
·        Share two things that have made you laugh or cry as an educator.
Cry: having to call CPS.  Laugh: Discussing with a fellow lefty student how one day us lefties will take over the world!
·        Share one thing you wish more people knew about you.
I’ve survived a lot in my life and I think that it makes me a stronger person.

Day 11: What is your favorite part of the school day and why?
     Some days it’s when the bell rings at the end of the school day.  More often than not, my favorite part of the day happens when I know I have the students in the palm of my hand.  You know what I’m talking about?  When they are listening to your every word, asking awesome and insightful questions, are answering questions which illustrate that they’ve actually learned something.  That’s my favorite part of everything!

Day 12: How do you envision your teaching changing over the next five years?
     I hope that I continue to evolve and improve.  I don’t want to be stagnant.  I imagine that I’ll be using a lot of technology and I hope that my students will be too.  I hope that I will always remember that my number one goal is to make sure that my students are learning and being challenged to think critically.

Day 13: Name the top edtech tools that you use on a consistent basis in the classroom, and rank them in terms of their perceived (by you) effectiveness.

• PowerPoint/Projector- I know.  This is so old school and not innovative.  But, it’s the technology that I use the most with my students.  It’s difficult to avoid notes in social studies---especially since I’m not flipping as much as I was last year.  (Must flip!)
  
• Weebly- My website is key to my instruction, particularly when I do projects.  All the students have to do is go to my site and everything is there, in one happy place!  Plus my Psych students are using Weebly for blogging.
  
• Laptop cart- I use this a bunch when my students are working on projects in class.
  

You may ask why I’m not using a ton of apps.  Well, that’s because we are not a 1:1 school and with BYOD not everyone has access to devices with apps.  I really want devices!!!!

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! 

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

Day 2: Write about one piece of technology that you would like to try this year, and why. You might also write about what you’re hoping to see out of this edtech integration.

     Yesterday’s post dealt with my goals for this school year.  One of my goals was to increase student engagement and inquiry.  I know of just the right piece of technology that I can use in my classes to meet this goal! 
     At EdCamp Hudson Valley, Melissa Seideman (Not Another History Teacher  and @mseideman) did a session about mobile devices in the classroom.  One of the items she discussed was Infuse Learning.  Infuse Learning is a student response system which is web based so you can use it with computers or smart phones.  
     Teachers can create a variety of assessments such as:

• Draw response
  
• True/false
  
• Multiple Choice
  
• Sort in Order
  
• Open Ended Text
  
• Numeric
  
• Likert Scale (1-5)
  

     The beauty of this is that you can then get real time results that can be shown to the class and the students get real time results which is the best type of feedback!  Best of all, this is a FREE service!  What could be better!
     Some of the ways that I might be using Infuse Learning in my classes are:

• Bell Ringers
  
• Polls
  
• Checks for Understanding
  
• Regents Review
  
• Review Games
  
• Exit Tickets
  

     I can’t wait to try this out with my students!

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

Day 1: Write your goals for the school year. Be as specific or abstract as you’d like to be!

     It’s a well-known principle that goal setting leads to goal achievement. Putting your goals in writing increases the potential that you will be effective at meeting your goals.  
     My goals for this year can be summed up in two words: balance and focus.
     I love teaching, but this year I HAVE to find a work/life balance.  And thus:

• I am going to take better care of myself so that I can be the most effective teacher I can be.  A happy and healthy teacher is a happy teacher, right?
  
• I am going to leave school at a reasonable time each day.
  
• I am not going to advise anything, coach anything, or hold any union office.   This is not the year for me to multitask by getting involved with huge responsibilities.  These things have caused me enormous stress and have negatively impacted my health.  Not to mention, these things have reduced my focus on teaching.
  

     To achieve a better work/life balance and be a good teacher, I’m going to have to be focused.  I need to do the things that will help my students to be successful and to learn skills that will serve them well in their futures as adults. To achieve this:

• I am going to focus more on activities which require student inquiry. 
  
• Some of the ways that I am going to accomplish this is through continuing student blogging in my Psychology classes.  I love how it helps students to reflect on what they are learning.
  
• I’m going to give more assignments where students find the answers to questions and share their knowledge with others.
  
• I increased the amount of primary sources I used in my US History classes last year and this year I am going to include even more.
  

     There are other goals that I have but I’m not sure that this is the year for them.  I want to become a National Board Certified Teacher and I also want to become a Google Certified Teacher.  I don’t think that my “rebuilding” year is the time to take on such ambitious projects.  I can’t seem to just be a 9 to 5 teacher.  
     I have a million things that I want to do and I think that if I lose my focus, my balance will be out the window!  I may need to look back at this post throughout the school year to remember my goals and stick to them.  But then again, isn’t that the purpose of writing down your goals? :)