I start my blogging adventure nearing the end of my second year of teaching. As I look back on the year I there are a few things that I have learned or that I would like to do differently for next year.

Professional Development

Professional Development (PD), in my humbled opinion, is a wonderful thing. The thing that is missing from PD is the teacher's willingness to learn more. I say that even the "worst" PD session you attend has something to offer....if you truly have a willingness to learn. I like to find at least one thing I can take out of every PD session I go to. If I get more then one, even better. 

I have also found that some of the best PD I have attended have been free and after school (a gem that my school division offers) or via social media. I have learned more strategies, techniques, ideas, information from my Twitter feed this year then I think I did in my 7 years of university (I feel another blog coming here). 

Finally, I found that if I didn't use what I had learned in a PD session right away then I might as well have not gone at all because it ends up in that dreaded binder I have of PD "stuff" never to be seen again!

Backwards by Design

I love backwards by design planning. It makes sense to me and it is all I know as that is how I learned to plan in university. The small issue or flaw I find in backwards by design is this....I am a firm believer of work smarter not harder and thus I rarely create from scratch a lesson or assessment. However, if I'm planning and I choose the outcome(s) I want to teach and then I decide on how I want to assess them then I'm off to find a lesson.....however, a lot of the time the lesson doesn't quite match how I had planned my assessment or what I had in my assessment (even though it clearly meets the outcomes I want to teach). So, I must then fix my assessment so it is more in line with the lesson or activity or change the lesson so it fits my assessment plan. Which then means I am technically not fulfilling my commitment to the backwards by design plan. 

So I ask...am I not really using the backwards by design? or am I adapting the design to fit my needs?

The Value of Sharing

I started at my current school in the middle of October after taking over a mat leave. I only kind of knew one other teacher in my grade team and a couple of others in the school. The first thing I did was talk to the teacher of the school I had just left to see if he could help me out with some ideas and/or resources to get me started. Then as I got comfortable and was creating things for myself (backwards by design of course!) I would fire out an e-mail and attach the Smartboard file or assessment and a quick note on what I used and how I used it. I never claimed they were amazing (which is one reason I think a lot of teachers don't share, they're afraid of the judgemental eyes of a colleague) and as always added change adapt how you may (I later started to add...if you do change it could you please send it back to me). Soon.....I was getting e-mails or hard copies dropped on my desk of ideas, activities, or lessons and now, my grade team is a lean, mean, file and idea sharing machine. 

I also found that just because someone doesn't teach the same grade doesn't mean their information is not valuable....I got a great idea to use in my portfolios while wondering around the Kindergarten rooms one day. 

That's all for now but I feel a blog on how Social Media has helped me in the near future.