This past Saturday I attended the Hudson Valley New York State Association for Computers and Technologies in Education (NYSCATE) Conference.  NYSCATE is an affiliate of ISTE.
     One of the best sessions was about implementing Genius Hour.  This is something that I hope to implement myself.  I’m a very cautious teacher and it’s difficult for me to just dive into something new.  This semester with my fully implemented flipped mastery classroom, I am dipping my toe into my very own version of a 20% Project.  The plan is to go all out in the fall or even next spring.  I want to do it right.
     I love the idea of students getting to pursue their passions.  But, the idea of no parameters is too much for me.  Is that wrong?  Maybe, but I am who I am.  That is why I loved the ideas that were presented by three teachers from Arlington Central School District (Kathy Bellino- @kgbellino, Julie Jee- @mrsjjee, Katie Nixon- @smilingIrish215).
     English teachers Julie Jee and Katie Nixon have based their projects (Project Inspiration and The Passion Project respectively) on literature and informative texts.  The students are connecting the curriculum to their passions and vice versa.  It’s truly genius. 
     Kathy Bellino is a social studies teacher who uses 20% time in her Civic Action and Leadership course.  This course is an alternate for the NYS required Participation in Government graduation requirement.  The theme of her Project Action is for students to answer the essential question of: "How can the average citizen bring about positive change in their community?" This warms my social studies heart!
     What I love about all three of these teachers’ projects is that they have created a loose structure for their students so that they can be successful but still be very free to follow where their passions lead them.  I love that they have worked to get students who say that they do not have a passion to discover that they really do after all.  I especially loved that they brought two former students with them to the presentation to give the all-important student perspective of what it was like for them to learn that they are capable of more than they thought that they were.
     All three teachers said that success was due in large part to meeting with students individually to discuss their ideas rather than just having them fill out a form stating what their intended project would be.  They also talked about how student buy in was important to making the project an overall success. 
     Julie Jee has graciously agreed to allow me to share the link to the Livebinder resources used in the presentation. Be sure to check it out and be inspired to reach towards genius status! 

     Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of my flipped life.  I started my spring semester Psychology classes at the beginning of February.  This was probably the worst month to try to get students into any kind of regular routine.  We had two snow days and two 2-hour delays and a four day weekend.  Also, I missed a day visiting flipped mastery in action with Tom Driscoll and a half day assisting with special education annual reviews.  Oh, and I almost forgot, I was “kicked out” of my classroom at one point because a new SMART Board was being installed.  I’m really happy that I’ve got this great technology but it’s still not hooked up yet and thus I haven’t been able to make use of it.  As you can tell, continuity was difficult to come by this month.
     My introductory chapter lasted a lot longer than usual because this time, it included an introduction to flipped mastery and the technology that we were going to be using this semester.  I created a “choose your own adventure” type assignment to introduce the students to the basics of Schoology (our LMS), Weebly (our blogging platform), and other resources they might find useful throughout the semester such as Cel.ly. 
     The students spent a lot of time customizing their Weebly sites (you can see them here) which I knew was going to happen.  It’s actually why I chose Weebly because it is easy to customize and has a ton of options for layouts.  I like pretty things!

     Some students also spent a lot of time trying adjusting to the fact that they had choice as to what to do in class every day.  Some would ask me “what do I do now?” and we would look at their Unit Objective sheet and talk about what they had completed and what might be the best thing to work on next based on the amount of time they had left in the class period.  It was pretty obvious that many of my students don’t have much of an idea about time management or prioritization.  I think that this concept alone will be a valuable one for them to learn throughout the semester.

     Other students breezed through the unit.  Those students were the happiest.  They expressed that they really loved the format of the class and that they finally felt that their time in class was well spent as opposed to being wasted with waiting on other people to finish writing when taking notes or dealing with classroom disruptions.  They are the students that feel comfortable with technology and are able to self-monitor their progress.
     I have been constantly asking the students for feedback throughout the month.  Prior to going to see Mr. Driscoll’s classes, I asked the students what they wanted me to ask his students.  The big fear that my students expressed was that flipped mastery would take away their opportunity to have class discussions or to ask for help when they needed it.  Their biggest fear was that our class would become impersonal. 
     I was sure to talk to Mr. Driscoll and his students about how they were able to keep student/teacher connections.  Mr. Driscoll’s format includes a ten minute discussion time at the start of each class period.  He might give the students a quote, political cartoon, or have them watch a video clip.  The students then reflect on their Daily Learning Journal handout (see below) and then engage in a class discussion.  I like this idea a lot and have been implementing it in my classes as well.

     Also, instead of having the students watch a documentary on the brain independently, we watched it together as a class.  That helped the students who were feeling disconnected too.  I created a “parking lot” on one of my free whiteboards where students could write questions and comments anonymously on post-it notes.  The students are just starting to post things here and I imagine it will be used more as the class progresses.
     I was feeling pretty good about everything until the last day of the month.  One of my students came up to me at the end of the class period to tell me that he was dropping the course.  He is an all-around nice kid, smart, hardworking, thoughtful, the whole nine yards.  I was devastated!  No one has ever dropped my class before; not like this.  He literally said “it’s not you, it’s me”!  He said that the format of the class was just too impersonal and that he thought that there was going to be more discussion.  I told him that we are really just getting started and that there is tons of discussion to come!  I told him that we will be having all kinds of activities that we wouldn’t have had time for using a traditional teaching model.  I asked him to hang with it for another week and see if I could change his mind.  He said that he needs to drop now, before the end of the 5-Week progress reports. 
     I truly thought for a minute that I should completely throw out this whole experiment and go back to my regular way of teaching.  Then I remembered that I have a wide PLN who has experience I can use to get me though my crisis of flipping faith.  I posted on Schoology that I needed them to talk me off of the ledge and they did just that!   I also made a point to talk to my students who I have for both Psychology and US History.  Those students know me well and have no compunction about being brutally honest.  They reassured me that the class is going well and that they truly enjoy it.  When I said I was thinking about doing a unit of US History as a flipped mastery experiment, they were excited.  They said what many teachers have said when talking about implementing a flipped classroom---it’s all in how you sell it to the students.
     I’m thankful that I have a great PLN, wonderful students, and this blog to reflect on my teaching practices.  I think that reflection might be THE most important component to improving as a teacher.  Thank you for being a part of my reflection process and for making me the best teacher possible for my students!

The snow has not been friendly to me recently.  It has be wreaking havoc on my teaching plans as well as my blog posts!  I’ve been waiting to write this particular post until I had a bit of time with my students to experience the flipped mastery.  I also wanted to be able to talk about my experience with Digital Learning Day.  Mine was delayed due to one in a series of blizzards we’ve had this month.  Now, finally, everything has fallen into place!






     As I mentioned in my previous two posts, I began experimenting with flipped learning almost a year ago.  I have researched, conducted trials, solicited student feedback, researched again, and went back to the drawing board.  
     As I started this school year, I still believed that the flipped mastery model would not work for me and my students.  I teach inclusion classes and I didn’t think that the students could manage working their way through unit objectives on their own, I didn’t think that my students would have enough support to be successful, and I didn’t think that my students would be able to learn everything that they need to enable them to pass the Regents exam in June.
     But assigning video notes for homework wasn’t working because too many of my students weren’t watching them. They weren’t doing the regular homework either.  The students did feel like the videos were beneficial and they loved that they could watch them at their own pace during the times that I had them watch them in class.  I loved how much time I was able to free up to do other activities and to work on skill building.
     I came to the conclusion that if I wanted have my cake and eat it too, I would need to give up my reservations and try flipped mastery.  Because I was still a little nervous about the prospect of trying something so radically different, I decided to only use a flipped mastery model for my Psychology classes.  Psychology is a semester course, an elective, and does not have a Regents exam.  I figured that I couldn’t screw things up too badly!

These are the things that I use to produce flipped videos and to enable my students to view them.

• Logitech Labtec Desktop Microphone 600 (when I purchased this it was $15) This was my original mic and it served me well.
  
• Yeti USB Microphone (currently $98) I got this for Christmas from my husband.  It’s a real upgrade in sound from my original microphone but not truly necessary to be able to produce screencasts.  It sure is nice though!
  
• PowerPoint
  
• Screencast-o-matic Free or $15 for a year.  Uploads to youtube or screencast-o-matic or even better save to your computer
  
• YouTube- my channel 
  
• Weebly-  My website to post links to videos
  
• Schoology - Starting in October our school district now uses this as our LMS and I now post videos here.  I download my screencasts as MP4s from Screencast-o-matic and then upload to Schoology. Then I don’t have to worry about them being blocked at school!
  

What's on my list to get next:

• Camtasia
  
• A video camera to attempt green screen recordings!

     Flipped mastery has begun for the second semester of my Psychology classes.  We have just begun our second unit.  I have to say that I am quite pleased and that my students are happy also.  Here’s what I’ve noticed so far:

• I learned the students names a lot quicker than I normally do
  
• Some students like choice and independence while others are completely confused by it (this has been improving daily)
  
• Some students shine that in other classes just put their heads down 
  
• In my foray into student blogging, I have learned that I need to teach writing and plagiarism (these were not topics that were big in this type of class previously) 
  
• There is a learning curve for both my students and me with this very different method of learning.  The way that I sell it to the students is that we will be working as a partnership.  So far the feedback from the students is that they are feeling empowered.  
  

     After visiting Tom Driscoll’s classes (@Mr_Driscoll) and talking to his students, I feel like I have made the right decision to pursue this new method of teaching.  His students were regular students, just like mine, and they were independent, knowledgeable, engaged, and learning!  I gained quite a few tips to smooth out some of the bumps that I have encountered so far and will be putting them into place immediately.  He also gave me a lot to think about for the future, particularly the addition of a gamification element to the course.  My co-teacher was so excited after learning about how successful Tom Driscoll has been in flipping his classes that he wants to get started with flipped mastery prior to the end of this school year rather than waiting for the fall as we had talked about previously!  I have to say that I’m extremely excited as well!!!
     I will be cohosting a Twitter chat for Psychology teachers with Melissa Schaefer (@MT_schaef) on March 12th at 9pm EST if you’d like to join in discussing our experiences with Flipped Learning.  Additionally, I will be presenting at the New York State Council for the Social Studies Annual Conference in Albany (March 27-29) about screencasting and curating videos for a flipped class.  I will also be posting updates here as the semester progresses to give you the play-by-play of what is working and what I have needed to modify.  

     I am a good teacher; or at least I think I am using the typical teaching metrics.  I have good pass rates on the Regents exams, my psychology elective is fully subscribed, and I have a good rapport with my students.  But here’s the question: am I doing the best I can for my students?  Am I teaching them to think critically, use reason and logic or am I just teaching them to pass a standardized test? While attending the Library of Congress Summer Teacher Institute  I decided that I need to up my game.
     At the LOC Summer Teacher Institute, we learned a variety of methods to encourage students to think critically.  After each demonstration I thought “Why am I not doing this with my students?”  I learned that although I am teaching them enough to pass tests and to have a general knowledge of the subjects I teach, they are not learning as much as they could (or should).  Basically, it’s all about putting the students’ learning and critical thinking process first above my teaching.  
     You would think that this would be easy for me to swallow and to put in to place but it’s proved to be difficult.  I think that a large part of the problem is me. It’s that whole “sage on the stage” thing.  It’s what I grew up with and was taught to do in college and what I have done for the past 13 years.  I have a difficult time giving up how I have always seen my role in the classroom.
     I am diligently working to remedy this situation.  I have begun gradually flipping my classes in the hopes of filling class time with more meaningful activities.  That really hasn’t been enough of a change and so the first week in February (the start of the new semester) I will be moving to a completely flipped Psychology class using the mastery model.  I am extremely excited and anxious as well.  I hope that my students will be willing to accept a really big change from what they have experienced for the past 11-12 years of schooling.  I hope that I will be able to retire my sage role and become the “guide on the side” that I know my students need.

     I have spent the school year so far reading like a fiend---all kinds of books, blogs, and articles about putting students at the center of learning. I have done a number of mini experiments with my classes which have moved both me and them out of our comfort zone.  I have used sites like ZooBurst to have students create children’s books on abolitionists and apps like Viddy for students to illustrate answers to review questions for Psychology.  I have had students organize themselves based on the documents they were assigned to analyze and had students search out their own supplemental information on the topics we discuss in class.  At every turn I have asked for student feedback and have used that to modify future trials.  Luckily, my students are very willing to provide constructive criticism!
     I will be attending three conferences in the next two months which will also help me in reaching my goal to provide my students with the best learning environment possible.  I will be using my Psychology classes as my model to move to a flipped mastery model for my US History classes for the 2014-2015 school year.  I truly believe that the move to flipped mastery will foster inquiry, creativity, and critical thinking on the part of my students.  I also believe that it will help to put my students on an equal footing in terms of access to technology, extra help, and the biggest item---it will eliminate homework.  
     So, here’s to my year as a teacher.  The teacher my students need me to be.

     Over the summer I read a book that many other teachers read as well: Teach Like a PIRATE.  This book has been the talk of the town for a while making the rounds at conferences and water coolers.  One of the biggest venues to discuss the book is via twitter chats.  You can now find subject specific chats in addition to the general #tlap chat (Mondays from 7-8pm Eastern Time).  There’s #tlapmath, #ELAtlap, #sstlap, and #SCItlap (for science).  I’d say that the twittersphere’s response is a pretty good endorsement of how influential this book is!
     This book interested me before I even knew that Dave Burgess is a fellow high school social studies teacher.  Honestly, the pirate thing was the biggest draw for me.  Who wouldn’t want to teach like a pirate?  I wanted to be the teacher who would hold the students captive to my educational awesomeness and the idea of being a bit of a quirky peg-legged, eye-patched, friend of parrots was a definite incentive for me to read the book.  Finding out that the author teaches difficult to motivate students US History was only icing on the cake!
     So, I’ve decided to put my own spin on the pirate lifestyle for my classroom this year.  I loved Dave’s idea of selling the class to the students.  I made my class handouts resemble advertisements and even had endorsements from last year’s students.  I decided to break away from my regular first few days of class where I went over the rules day one and dove into the curriculum on day 2.  Like I said, I did my own spin on the pirate life so on day one for US History I did an activity called History in a Bag  and for Psychology I did the Marshmallow Challenge. 

     Next week I will be doing activities where the students will be up and moving in both classes.  Both activities are inspired by my summer conferences.  My US History classes will be doing an activity I learned about at the Library of Congress Summer Institute involving maps entitled “Connecting with Primary Sources” (more on this later).  My psychology classes will be taking part in a Values Walk.  
     I truly believe that using the PIRATE methods in addition to my own general zany character will really make my class an exciting place for my students where they feel motivated to learn.  Coupling this with my move towards gradually flipping my classes and integrating more technology overall will make this even easier for me to accomplish.  My goal is to have more class time to engage my students and really help them to connect with the content.  So far I’m feeling extremely energized and very excited to teach my lessons.  One student has already said to me “You can tell you really like your job”.  What a great endorsement two days into the school year!

     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 am an eternal optimist.  My cup is always half full and there is always a silver lining.  The student that everyone says is evil that is on my class list in September will be just fine in my class.  That is how I roll.
     This past school year there were a few things that happened that truly dampened my spirit.  In my last post, I discussed my AIS class and the issues I was having with them in terms of their motivation and my ability to help them to be successful on the Regents exam.  In this case my greatest fears were realized.  Only two of my 12 students passed their exams.  One of those students I can’t even take credit for since she was currently enrolled in Global II and thus was receiving her primary assistance through her regular teacher.  I can make myself feel a little better since one student who was in my class had only been in the country for three months prior to being asked to take an exam on United States History.  Another student had her test disqualified for cheating (that’s a whole story that sadly will not be told here).  Several students improved their grades from their previous times taking the test.  Regardless, I feel like I failed these students even though we were both put in a bad situation.  I am not used to this feeling.
     Another major event dealing with my professional life shook me to my core.  I’m really not sure that I can discuss that here either.  What a bummer, huh?  Basically, I learned that you cannot count on people to do the right thing or to value those people who do actually do the right thing.  I did the right thing, or at least I will believe that I did until my dying day, and it was me who paid the price.  It has certainly taught me who my friends are and who I can count on.  I think that experiences like mine will continue to become more common as long as teacher evaluations are linked to high-stakes testing.
     As a result of my experiences I took time off from being “Teacher Dawn”.  I did not organize my materials or brainstorm new activities or refine my plans or any of the usual things that I tend to do during the summer.  I didn't tweet or even read articles dealing with education.  I was just “Regular Citizen Dawn”.  This break was necessary for me and now, as I’m coming out of my hiatus, I feel re-energized and ready to get back to work!  I feel very lucky that I had the opportunity to let myself heal. 
     So, welcome back “Teacher Dawn”!!!  I can’t wait to share with you, my blog readers, my experiences at my first summer conference as well as the process I use to plan for the new school year.  Stay tuned!

     I have taught basically every social studies class that my high school offers in the past 12 years.  The only constant has been teaching US History.  If you actually knew me you would know that I’m not one to brag so what I’m about to say isn’t because I’m overly full of myself: I have a history of great Regents pass rates---even though I teach inclusion classes.  I actually even have decent levels of mastery, which according to New York State is when students score an 85 or above.  My inclusion partner and I work hard as well as our students to achieve these results.  I generally know who is going to fail and who is going to pass and I feel good about how we all come together to achieve successful results.
     This year, for the spring semester, I was assigned to teach AIS for the first time.  AIS (Academic Intervention Services) is a State mandated course that each school must offer for students who have either received poor scores or are predicted to receive poor scores on their State exams.  I went into the class thinking “this will be difficult but I have the tools to help these students and together we will get them through this test!”  Now, 15 weeks later, I’m pretty depressed.
     I did a bunch of research to see how other school districts approached AIS courses.  Many of them just required the students to use a computer program such as NovaNET to work at their own pace to review the course material.  My district uses this program primarily for credit recovery although it has been used for some AIS courses.  My colleagues who taught AIS prior to me weren’t crazy about the program so I didn’t even explore using it.  I, somewhat haughtily thought, I can do better than any program!  I will reach these students where no one else has!
     The first issue that I encountered is that there was a mix of students who needed to pass the Global and the US regents exams.  Basically, since I planned to work directly with the students I had to teach two lessons at the same time.  Desk work for the US kids while I instructed the Global students on outlining an essay on imperialism and the like.  I proceeded like this for two weeks or so and then gave the students a practice test on the material and types of questions that we had covered together.  Their test scores did not change from their base levels.
     I thought that I should mix things up and play review games with the students.  Then I had them work just on skills relating to multiple choice questions (the biggest reason why the students fail the exam).  Afterwards, I took them to the computer lab and we went on Regents Prep.com and even used Castle Learning.  We worked together as a class, one on one, subject specific, you name it.  I gave them more and more practice tests.  What were the results?  Some students had gained a point or two, several had lost ground, most stayed the same.
     I was demoralized.  I had never experienced anything like this before.  My US History students, for the most part do as I ask, put in the extra effort, and do what they need to do to pass the test.  These students complained every day.  I had to fight them constantly about talking, taking out their cell phones, or completing the work that I assigned.  When I had started planning for the course and other people who had taught it before said that I shouldn’t invest too much time in preparation because there was no hope for these students, I scoffed at them in my head.  They didn’t care as much as I did or work as hard as I would work.
     I have exactly 13 class periods left with these students.  Despite my depression, I haven’t given up all hope.  I do think that the system is working against me and my students.  Students shouldn’t be enrolled in a class like this after they have already failed.  Some of my students aren’t trying because they don’t see the point in it.  Some of my students have bigger things to worry about then passing a social studies test; it’s just not on their radar.  Some of them haven’t been asked to do the work necessary to be successful before and as a result are fighting back by being not exerting any effort.
     I keep thinking, if only I’d had these students for the entire school year, maybe then they’d have a chance.  Maybe I need to accept that I can only be accountable for myself and not the system.  Maybe they’ll just wait until the exam to surprise me and make all of this worry worthwhile.

Who uses their students as guinea pigs?  I do!
     I’ve spent several months reading up about flipped learning (Flipped Learning Network, Flip Your Classroom book, and elsewhere on the web), participated in some #flippedclass chats, and discussed how flipping would work with my inclusion co-teacher and students.  At some point I needed to just jump in and try it out.

In-Class Flip: US History
     I’m very lucky that my co-teacher and our students are up for trying new things.  Even with that being the case, I decided to start out slowly and do an “in-class flip”.  Wes (my co-teacher) and I recorded a screencast of a much abbreviated World War II PowerPoint for our US History classes.  You can find it here.  Please note that we teach an eleventh grade inclusion class and so we focus on the major points that the students need to know for the Regents exam.  We used Screencast-o-matic to record our presentation which was just under fifteen minutes long.  We also used a $15 microphone I picked up from Amazon.  I figured, why spend a lot on something that may or may not work for our classes!
     We had the students watch and take notes during class time using laptops from our laptop cart.  I’d have to say that was the most frustrating part of the process because some of the laptops worked, some of them worked but were very slow to load, and some of them didn’t work at all.  Several students used their personal iPads or phones to listen to the presentation and they were very successful. It was a bit of a weird experience though because some students forgot to bring headphones and had to listen quietly from their computers.  Wes and I were both very self-conscious about how we sounded but luckily the kids loved it!
     Overall, the experiment went well.  We had the students fill out a survey afterwards and had a “debrief” session to get their constructive criticism.  Their biggest beef was that they couldn’t see us!  Who’d have thought that they would want to see us so badly!  They had great suggestions including shorten the length of the videos to ten minutes rather than fifteen and possibly even have students come by and be guests in the videos.  What great ideas!  They loved that Wes and I were conversational and continued our in class practice of making corny jokes.

In-Class Flip: Psychology
     I decided the next week to try the same thing with my Psychology classes.  I used the computer lab this time and did not have any technological issues with the video playing.  I tried to make the video fit into the ten minute time frame, didn’t (it was over 13 minutes), and ended up rushing.  The students’ biggest criticism afterwards reflected that they thought that I went way too fast.  For my part, I missed having someone else to record with.  It was a bit odd talking to myself and I wasn’t sure that the students would like it at all.  They still said that I was funny and that they enjoyed listening to me, so possibly it is my own personal thing to work through.  Here is the link to the video.

Flipping: The Real Deal
     After the positive feedback from the students, Wes and I decided we were ready to assign videos for homework to our US History students.  We recorded three videos that were between nine and eleven minutes in length.  The assignment for the students was to watch and take notes.  Overall the students reacted positively although there were quite a few students who did not watch the videos by the due date (we gave them almost a week).  I should have had them fill out another survey to get more specific feedback---I guess I still can.
     On my part, I’m so used to being the stereotypical “sage on the stage” that I had problems relinquishing being in the front of the class.  I worried that the students still didn’t “get” the information from the videos and basically reviewed it afterwards.  That is something that I need to work on, regardless of my flipping future.  My students need more exposure to critical thinking and I need to be willing to provide them that opportunity.  Honestly, this is one reason I love teaching because if I don’t get it right the first time, I can always try to be better in the future. 

My Flipping Future
     As the school year comes to a close, I don’t think that I will have the opportunity to do another flipped lesson for US History.  I have already bombarded the students with review assignments and I just don’t want to add any more to that.  Wes and I are, however, recording some of our review sessions for students to use outside of class to study from.  This is great for our students who don’t always get things the first time around and for the majority of our students who don’t have any clue as to how to study.  I’ve already uploaded some of my review of the Constitution onto YouTube and the students were very happy to hear that they will have that as an added resource.
     I may have time to flip my Psychology classes a few more times prior to the end of the school year.  Electives are such a different beast than Regents courses.  I love the freedom from being bound to a test! I always have so much that I want to teach on Abnormal Psych that I never have time for and flipping will be the perfect remedy for that problem.
     Speaking of Psychology, I got accepted to ninth annual American Psychological Association (APA)/Clark University Workshop for High School Teachers on July 22-24, 2013 at Clark University in Worcester, MA!  And I was thinking about not applying!!!!  I’m really excited about this opportunity and the positive impact it will have on my Psychology classes in the future!
     So, stay tuned and I’ll keep you updated on my flipping process.  It’s certainly something that I am still very eager to do and do successfully.  That’s why there’s summer, right?  Do work on all of the things that there just isn’t time for during the school year!

Welcome one and all to my blog!  My name is Dawn Clemens and I have been a high school social studies teacher for the past 13 years.  I am the Vice President of my local teachers union (probably more on that in the future) and I am the editor of our newsletter, Between Assignments.  These three positions have shaped me as a teacher and shaped my ideas about education as a whole.  As a result, I have a lot of opinions, experiences, and knowledge to share with the world of education.

Why a blog? Why me? Why now? 

Teaching is my life.  Seriously.  I eat, breathe, and sleep teaching.  I decided when I was in kindergarten that I wanted to be a teacher and I never changed my mind.  It’s pretty rare to make a decision as a 5 year old and stick with it for the next 30 years but here I am.  When I was 22 and had my very own classes to teach for the first time I thought that I was doing a decent job.  I knew I was very far from perfect but I knew that I had the basic elements of a good teacher: I loved teaching, I loved my content, and I loved my students. I always knew that teaching was a journey and that as I continued I would gain more of the specific skills that I would need to be successful and to truly meet the needs of my students.

Each year, at the end of the year, I set goals for myself to improve on.  I usually do it while the kids are taking their Regents exams or right after I’ve finished grading their exams.  I need to incorporate more political cartoons, change how I teach essay writing, make sure I come up with a new system for assigning homework, etc.  Each year, the list is just as long as the year before---even though I implement most of my goals the following school year.  My list is always long because I’m always growing as a teacher; always trying to be the best teacher that I can be.

This year I started using Twitter as a way to expand my own personal professional development.  There will certainly be a lot more on my love affair with Twitter in the future!  Twitter taught me that I need to do more to improve as a teacher because there is a world out there that I was completely unaware of---and I want to be a part of it.  Actually, I want my students to be a part of it too!  So, I decided to start a blog to chronicle my continuing journey.  Maybe I can help other teachers and maybe they can help me.  Maybe people will want to hear all of my ideas or want to share their own.  Maybe I just want to expand who I teach outside of my own classroom walls.  I’m not totally sure.  I think that possibly I just want to know that there are other people out there just like me that just can’t stop eating, breathing, and sleeping teaching.

Welcome to Clemens’ Classroom!