In the meeting, the second thing I wanted to achieve came to the front. I wanted each and every participant in the challenge and those throwing ideas across the table to realise exactly how skilled they are and exactly how much can come out of a room full of CRTs all throwing their hat in the ring. The ideas that came from the meeting are astonishing in volume and quality! My favourite quote came during the final discussion after brainstorming for one of the challenge submissions that someone brought with them:
"I could get an entire week's lessons out of this!".
THAT is what we can achieve. We aren't "second class teachers", we aren't the Teachers who weren't good enough to get a full time position, we aren't the teachers who don't have the time to devote to being good enough to have a full-time position. We are dedicated educators with all of the knowledge, skill and experience of any other group of teachers. We are specialists in a field that we get better at every day we are in it.
The third intention was to supply you with a spread of things that you have created as a source of reflection to see how far you've come as a Teacher.
All of us want a happy life, that's just a fundamental part of being human. With so much of our lives taken up by our careers that's never really going to happen for us if we aren't happy at work. It really is that simple.
So, take that stuff you made and see what it says about you as a teacher.
Many activities, one resource:
Do you feel you had to "stretch" the relevance of the resource to cover certain curriculum areas? If you did, do you think that's perfectly OK?
Did you find yourself wishing you'd picked a different resource at any point along the way and why?
Did you carefully choose your resource having considered many, or did you just see a resource and have your head filled with basic ideas to run with?
Did you find it restrictive being able to only use a single base resource?
Do you think the classes you teach will find it restrictive working from one resource or will they react positively to a common theme running through the multiple activities?
Have a think on these things. Do you think you are happier working from a solid plan, a flexible plan or would you be happier working "on the fly"? Do you think a structured approach is the most comfortable or would you prefer to have the "wiggle room" that extra activities would offer, giving you a bank of quick alternatives to choose from if your plan isn't working for a given class?
Note: This isn't about what should or shouldn't happen in a classroom, it's about your personal likes. We all know that you shouldn't walk into a room without a plan and do things "on the fly" even if it's a good idea to cultivate the skills to be able to do so for CRTs "just in case".
If you created a large collection of resources:
Sort them into 3 different piles. The first pile is what you could have created at the start of your career. The second pile is what you could have created in the middle of your career. The last pile is for the stuff you could have only recently created through a relatively new piece of learning.
Which pile is the biggest? What does this say about your professional learning along the way? Where did you learn most of the skills that you use in the classroom? Are you happy with this progression?
Then pick one from each pile at random. Have a think about how you would have used them in the classroom in your first day out, then in the middle of your career and then now. What does this say about the progression of your knowledge about the way students learn and classroom management? Is this pretty much in line with what you learnt in university OR have you picked up new strategies along the way to help make your classroom more conducive to learning?
Put those 3 back and then pick up the first pile. What principles are shown in that pile that you still find useful today? To what extent do they feature in the other two piles? Are you using those tried and true methods regularly OR have they mostly given way to something new but just as effective? Do you still use them "as is"? Have you incorporated them as an effective base to expand upon for other activities you have created?
Put them all back together. Now make another 3 piles. This time sort them into what you find most desirable to use in the classroom. What sort of things feature in the "least desirable" pile? Why do you think you have put them there? Have they been superseded by new methods you learnt along the way? Are they just "tired old methods" that students might not find engaging even though they are highly educational?
Now take the "I like these best" pile and build a lesson out of it. At lease two and a half hours but an entire day if you want to. You can pinch one or two activities out of the middle pile if you need to but no more than two. Were you able to build a complete lesson covering multiple curriculum areas? Jump in your "Way Back" machine and go to the time when you were in a class appropriate for those activities and think about the lesson from that perspective. Would the student you appreciate the teacher you have become?
Now do the same with the other two piles.
Now put the sheets away and just look at the ideas you have had during this reflection activity. You have a map of your career from varying perspectives. The "new teacher" that could only look at the two later piles and hope to be there one day. The "middle teacher" who can see back to what they used to be and forward to what they are going to be. The "end teacher" who can see the journey spread out behind them. The student you who used to have to go to school every day whether they enjoyed it or not.
How would each of the "yous" feel about that progress and who you are as a teacher? Are they being realistic or unrealistic in the way that they weigh up the information? What expectations did each of the "yous" have that you think are fully achievable but at some point along the way you got jaded or institutionalized and never followed up on? What aspect of your career is stopping you from doing it? Have you become jaded and need a new source of inspiration and enthusiasm? Do you just lack suitable tools to achieve what you want to achieve?
If you created a single lesson:
Pull your lesson down into it's component activities, themes and curriculum areas.
At which point in your career do you think you could have created each activity?
At which point in your career do you think you were capable of effectively using the different activities and had the behaviour management skills to make them effective and non-disruptive?
How have you structured the lesson? Are the "fun" activities last as a "carrot on a stick" approach to provide student motivation? Are they up front to engage students first? Are they interspersed so "a spoon full of sugar helps the medicine go down"? Or perhaps you have other reasons entirely for the structure. At which point in your career do you think you could have created a similarly effective structure? Did you used to use a different structure that evolved into this one? What were the elements that forced this evolution?
Has this evolution made your workload higher or lower? If it's made your workload higher, how much easier is it to accomplish now with the extra classroom experience than it would have been your first day on the job? If it's lower, at what point in your career did the different situations or learning happen that made you realize there was an easier way?
If you picked a different resource, how many of the activities could be quickly changed to suit the new one? How many are general and how many are specific? How often do you think you could re-use the same basic plan with a new resource in the same class before it got "old hat"?
How many of the activities could be reused with a new resource and maintain their educational value and student engagement over an extended period of time?
How universal do you think your lesson plan is? How many different classrooms could you use it in to good effect? What grade levels could it be simplified for or bumped up a few notches for?
Again, it's time for the wayback machine. How do you think the young you would have found the lesson and would they appreciate the teacher it shows you to be?
Again you have a list of multiple perspectives. How would the different yous at each stage of your life and career view the teacher you have become? How do you think the different yous would be happy with the "now you"? Think about the triumphs they would have seen you as having. Do you think they would find this expected or impressive? What areas would they be disappointed with? What goals did they have that you have not achieved? Do you think this was because the younger yous were a little naive or have you just forgotten about those goals or not had the chance to achieve them yet?
If you are just new.
These will come in the future after some of the activity packs have been uploaded!
Think about it all.
What do you think this all says about you as a teacher? Did you realize you were fully capable of what you achieved or are you a little surprised with how well you did? Are you happy with where you are on your Professional Learning curve? Have you had "those thoughts" since you finished? You know the ones, the "Oh no! I could have put this in too!" thoughts.
Does this give you a solid way to sort the wheat from the chaff to see where you are now and where you need to go to become the teacher you want to be at the end of your career?
I hope so. I don't just want you all to be the best teachers you can be, I also want you all to be the happiest teachers you can be. Being happy within yourself will add to your presence in the classroom and your effectiveness as a teacher. It will help you to reduce stress and avoid becoming burnt out which will help keep you as a sustainable member of the profession.
Most of all? It will get you one step closer to that happy life that everyone wants for themselves.
Regards,
Mel.
No comments:
Post a Comment