Educators wait for the chance to stop the clock and regroup after a year full of non-stop teaching and learning. I recall as paraprofessional, teacher, and technology coordinator looking forward to this break, but I found myself still working and learning.
Well, what do I mean by work? Taking advantage of technology professional development workshops and institutes. I cannot begin to share the number of college course that I have completed during the summer sessions. I also worked and conducted summer enrichment programs, gifted and talent camps, and technology professional development courses for my district's staff.
One thing that I lived for is partnering with my fellow colleague to visit educational supply stores and discuss all of the new items, trends and cross-curricular educational strategies. I would shop till I dropped as I engulfed myself in preparing my classroom for the new school year.
Wow, I often wondered, was this normal? Should I be occupying my time with planning for another year, when I should be enjoying my summer break. I have always strived to become better in all that I do. Hmmm...I'm not sure, but I need to ask: Teachers, how are you using your summer break to become a stronger educator?
A penny for your thoughts.:)
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As an educator who is passionate about excellence in education, I am of the mindset that the summer months are not just a time to relax - but a time to refuel. We as a society are very selective about the professions we employ. We search frantically for top docs, top schools, top restaurants, etc. The best society has to offer is what we seek.
ReplyDeleteTherefore, I strongly believe that all educators must have the same level of commitment to teaching as a profession and I anxiously embrace the summer months as another opportunity to grow professionally and share whatever knowledge I am able to glean with my colleagues.
This summer I have already participated in a variety of face to face, online and virtual professional development forums and I have facilitated two professional development sessions. However, the highlight of my summer thus far was a phenomenal workshop I attended entitled, "Students as Digital Learners in 21st Century Learning Environments." The NJDOE is in the process of revising the NJCCCS in an effort to tranform classrooms into engaging learning environments that will better prepare students for the society in which they live. It is part of the Creating 21st Century New Jersey Schools initiative. I highly recommend administrators and teachers attending this FREE foundational session. Registration information may be found at (http://cie.kean.edu/CIE/21st_century_nj_schools.html)
Point to ponder…”Anything that is not growing is dying.”
I agree with Edith and I use a lot of my time to "dig" information, new learning and teaching trends. I also participated in face to face training, webinars and facilitated two professional develpment sessions in the district.
ReplyDeleteI can sit on my backyard, enjoying the company of my dogs and my garden, chase squirrels and learn on the web.
I think that this is a link that us, as educators should take to the students: teach them to identify and select relevant information and learn with the world...we should not be lecturers in the classroom... we need to find ways to really make our students responsible for their learning, and prepare them for the "real world" in which people learn, share and dissiminate information in different ways than just the blackboard, paper and pencil.
It is important that us, educators, change our roles in the classroom to "facilitators"
Just a thought...
Denise....Question??
ReplyDeleteFacilitators...mmm, interesting! I just wonder how many of us feel comfortable being facilitators. What percentage of students in a classroom setting would be able to handle that style of teaching? How do you prepare your students for that type of learning environment?
Change is difficult! How do we as educators, adjust? I look at the types of student we have and look at the world and I know that we have to prepare them. If it takes more teachers learning versus leisure during the summer, I would always agree to make the sacrifice.
Which strategy do we take to make the majority of our students "responsible for their learning"?
OK...many questions to which I don't have an exact answer. I just know that's what we need to aim to, if we want to really prepare our kids...especially our kids!
ReplyDeleteWe have many restraints right now...NJDOE, textbooks, instructional frame time...still, we can start some change in the way we deliver curriculum. The only way I think we will be able to convince teachers to change from their comfortable level is by modeling exciting ways of delivering curriculum, and teach them.
Technology is in! I think I mentioned to you that when I left Texas in 2005, the high school of the district in which I was working was already delivering all the math curriculum online - advanced stuff at the time. I don't have a clue of where they are standing now, but I know that we have to go this way!
Our kids will probably learn much more and be much more engaged, if we can just get what is in the textbook and give it some life by embedding technology.
So where do we start from...more training to teachers, staff and administrators! Everybody needs to feel comfortable with the tech resources available?
As for changing the attitude of our kids...modeling and challenging is probably the key!
I received some responses from some people that attended the workshops that I facilitated, and I don't know about all of them, but I can tell you that I stimulated some people. I hope they are able to keep up the excitement and take it to their classrooms.
@ Denise
ReplyDeleteAlright, I am sure that the participants will take all of those best practices that you shared with them back to the classroom. It sounds wonderfulto hear "owwws & ahhhhs" during a training. It is a challenge, but we have to start somewhere and I find reaching one person at a time is satisfying.
Just think...all of those participants would rather LEARN than take advantage of LEISURE. This is great! LOL!!
Yeah Tonya, it's a start. It was great to have some participants of the first workshop asking to attend the second workshop.
ReplyDeleteGave some thought about how to make our students responsible for their learning, and I remembered the second grade class when I first started...it was an inclusion class, yet, we got many kids to be successful. I remember telling the children that I did not accept anything less than 100...that they could do it! I remember Maltzman and I talking about how to address the difficulties that some of our students had. We used creative ways to deliver curriculum.
This last school year I received a note of one of our former students in which she stated that she missed Maltzman and I, that her grades were better when she was with us.
So my question is "what were we doing different that we were able to engage these children and make them want to learn? Was it our levels of energy? The way we were excited about what we were teaching them?
I don't know if I mentioned to you that my bachelor is in physical education (back in Brasil). One of the books that I read when attending college was called "Freedom to Learn" by Carl R. Rogers (1969). That's when I first heard about being a facilitator. Found some interesting information on that.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.panarchy.org/rogers/learning.html
On aanother note: come on people...let's discuss...let's exchange ideas. I'm starting to feel a little alone here!
OK here I go again...
ReplyDeleteFor those interested, Dicovery Education is having a month of one hour webinars...Monday it was about hyperlinks in PowerPoint, yesterday, Animoto and Photostory 3 and today Movie maker. These webinars will run to the end of the month...ake the opportunity!
Thank you Denise for sharing. It is always nice to take that leisure time and put it to good use, LEARNING.
ReplyDeleteFor anyone that is interested i nthe Discovery Summer School webinars, here is the link for those resources. http://blog.discoveryeducation.com/summer-school/