This has been an interesting week, as we have finished school and the focus has been in tying up loose ends, final exams, posting grades, and cleaning up our rooms. Because of this, my GAME plan has made minimal progress. My personnel resources have been unavailable as they focus on their own year-end tasks.
I was able to find some time to work on it, as I knew that I needed to make it a priority if I wanted to stay motivated. In the time that I had, I reviewed my compiled list of conferences and webinars that I felt would help me in becoming a better educator and help my classes to be more engaging and authentic. This was a fun task for me, as I was able to further explore the initial list and found a small handful of my priority learning events. These are the conferences and webinars that I will be presenting to my principal as the top choice events.
For my second goal of widening the variety of assessment tools that I use, I have been in continuous contact with our technology coordinator and my colleagues to gather ideas and best practices. This week I am attending the teacher quality professional development day offered at our school. Two of the sessions that I am attending are focused on assessments and differentiation. I am very excited about these, and am hopeful that I am able to get some good resources from them.
At this point, I am still pleased with my action plan. Throughout the summer, I will be spending a lot of time determining appropriate assessment tools for my classes from what I have gathered. I am looking forward to the learning opportunities that I have committed to, and am excited to be able to apply what I learn to my plans for next school year.
The biggest thing that I have learned to this point is that there are a lot of teachers out there that are willing to share their ideas and best practices. I have known this to a certain extent, but the amount of responses I have received just in my building alone is astonishing. These responses have even come from the teachers who generally do not participate in these types of email requests. I am very pleased and encouraged by these responses, and will definitely continue to call upon my colleagues for ideas in the future.
One question that I have in regards to my GAME plan is: what types of webinars or other online sessions have other teachers attended or researched that may help me in finding assessment tools or new uses for technology? I have been asking my school colleagues, but I would like to expand into the blogging world. If you have resources, or even best practices that you're willing to share, I would love to hear from you!
Vikki,
ReplyDeleteI actually have found quite a few interesting and informative ideas via Pinterest. I am not a fan of blogging, myself, but do enjoy the wisdom of others. Pinterest has wonderful ideas for webinars, classroom instructional ideas, assessments that are CCSS aligned and lots of teacher blogs to look through. I can spend hours on Pinterest and have in the evenings after the twins are in bed. Check out some of their ideas to see if they interest you. I would love to read your blog if you decide to create one.
Shelby
Hi Vikki,
ReplyDeleteI know how you feel with the end of the school year coming to a close. I have also found that teachers are willing to share ideas and best practices they use in the classroom if asked. There are a number of blogs I read that pertain to technology in the classroom. One of my favorites is Edutopia, which has many blogging topics. One in particular is technology integration that shares ideas for using technology in the classroom and at home to improve learning, encourage collaboration, and increase student engagement.
Tim
Hi Vicki
ReplyDeleteI fully comprehend the difficulty of executing a game plan at the end of the school year. One of the teachers that agreed to collaborate with me, asked that we delay until next school year. I do understand, but it affected my task.
Also, I am finding more negative comments in my Tech Meetings regarding the new technology than positive. Literally, there were two good comments and a long list of at least 10 issues such as how technology does not solve the problem of teaching multiple grades in one classroom, and how the students are still more tech savvy than their teachers since the training that was promised seems to have been placed on the back burner.
Few teachers are willing to share ideas, as several are leaving and won't even respond to the meeting announcements. Others are simply busy getting ready for next year. So, I do understand your dilemma.