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| https://flic.kr/p/W8jhfE |
Connecting the Dots
I don't need to tell you. February is just hard work. STAAR is looming. Your attention is being pulled in 950 directions, and you're coming in early and leaving late and still feeling like the hamster wheel is turning ninety miles an hour, and you can't catch up.
As I prepared to go to Alkek this week for our Digital Learning PLC, I was feeling guilty for taking yet another conference period from my colleagues who needed to do so many different things. And I had one of those epiphany, lightning strike moments.
We're in the middle of the work right now, and sometimes that work is messy and exhausting. For the older crowd who will remember the reference, it's "Calgon, take me away" season. Hang in there! All the pieces are slowly coming together. Dr. Hollingsworth has given us things to "look for" in our classrooms; Mr. Tosh is visiting campuses to help us look at our data with new eyes; I'm promoting blended learning and digital tools to anyone and everyone who will listen, and campus administrators are working on developing campus culture and climate. And you are doing the hard stuff. You are working day and night to teach. My epiphany came with finally realizing where those seemingly disparate conversations intersect: our students. Our conversations aren't about data or about instruction or about pedagogy, or about geek tools: they're about giving our kids the opportunity to be the best they can be.
By meeting the needs of each and every student in our classrooms, engaging them in learning, empowering them to apply their learning in a real way, and offering them experiences that make them want to invest in the learning, we will put checkmarks next to Dr. H's "look for's," move our kids to make progress, and directly impact both campus climate and culture...and move the columns on those T-TESS goals, too.
Rather than give you a list of tools this week, I encourage you to visit with one of the teachers who attended TCEA last week. Ask them about their biggest take-aways. Chances are they will give you a tool or two to use in your classroom right away (EdPuzzle, Flipgrid, Insert Learning, or Google Drawings are on the top of my "get-the-most-bang-for-your- buck" right now), but I'm betting that they will also tell you that they saw how using technology to do some of the heavy lifting could allow them to spend more time face-to-face with individual students. That's what's it all about, folks.
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| Not pictured because they were in sessions: Lisa Gherman, Cassie Simon, Stephanie Jones |
