Happy New (Academic) Year
Written on August 18, 2008 – 3:09 pm | by erniec
Our 08-09 school year kicked off today. Parents, teachers, and students alike all expressed disbelief that the summer has ended. As I set out on another year I have made a few resolutions (in no particular order) -
- Continue to expand and depend on my Professional Learning Network (PLN). My PLN extends beyond the confines of my school and includes people from many different educational settings and geographic locations. This is an idea that David Warlick has discussed and will be addressing in upcoming webinars. Presently my PLN includes teachers in my building, Twitter, a couple of Nings, conferences and seminars, Blogs, and list servs.
- Reflective Practice – many of my resolutions will be interconnected and support one another. I want to make a concerted effort to think about my teaching. Action research projects will be one way to foster this practice. Reflection will demand that I set aside time each week to read professional publications, connect with my PLN about issues, and redesign projects that are not working.
- Read more YA. My summer gig at the public library of Wake County showed me that I am way behind on reading Young Adult fiction. I’ve not read the Stephanie Meyer books yet…
- More exploration of Constructivist Inquiry-Based education. The book In Search of Understanding has been my guide so far. I also will work this year to integrate the new Standards for the 21st Century Learner into my teaching practice. I am more and more convinced that real learning must begin with
the individual student and where they are as a person at the moment they arrive in your classroom. - Defeat the physical inbox - I am terrible at the paperwork end of things. Unfortunately, the wonderful administrative staff in our school have expanded by inbox capacity thus allowing me to further ignore it. I will stem the paper tide this year!
- Clean off your desk Mr. Cox – last year a student caught a glimpse of my desk (I thought I had closed the door). They said that they would never be allowed to have a mess like that in their locker. Good point. We encourage (and often demand) organizational performance from our students. I will clean my desk (and office). The time I will save looking for things could support all of the above resolutions.
There probably are more resolutions that will arise as the year progresses but this seems like a good place to start.
