Education is a never ending landscape of different concepts vying for control of your professional focus. *list of our recent district adopted programs below* It can be overwhelming. I have left work and indulged in a marathon session of computer gaming, much to my lovely wife’s chagrin, to escape from the crashing wave of bettering education.
According to the talking heads and ‘education reformers’, I shouldn’t care. I should just be going in everyday, opening up my binder to Day 146 and reciting the same lessons I have done for the past 22 years. I should have ‘checked out’ on making education better the instant I received my tenure.
Fortunately, and yes it is fortunate, teachers rarely fall into this category. We are seekers. We want to reach all the students we teach. The students change every year, and we struggle to find the best way to change with them. When we change with them, we still want to keep high standards and improve our practice. As new things come in, more programs and ideas offer better approaches. If one program works, it is hard for a teacher to drop it, so they just pick up the new one to meld it into what they are already doing.
Unfortunately, teachers often have quite a long list of programs they are in the middle of getting melded into their classrooms and then they are told they have to implement more. A teacher has the preferred ideas/programs and then the dictated ones. This is not a complaint, just the way it has been in my 22 years of experience. I think this is why the average teacher lasts on average 5 years in the profession. If a teacher makes it past 7 years, they are almost certainly going to be a lifelong teacher.
How did I do it? Lots of video games. Also, realizing that teaching is a process. Every year, find excitement what has been dictated, do what excites you too, listen and watch the students for what excites them, and keep telling yourself that next year you will be better.
According to research, how do you improve instructional practice? One thing at a time. Take one thing and make it work with consistency, and then add the next thing. This is something that does not happen in education, because it is a tidal wave that we are surfing upon. It is not a soft wave that pushes us forward, but a torrent that threatens to bash us to bits if we fall. If we succeed the wave may push us higher than we can ever go, but it is a long fall… so don’t look down.
Performance task building
Math Ninjas Committee work
Data Team Pilots
Westside Writing training
ELA Adoption committee
Teal Pilots
Tech Gurus committee work
Science Olympiad
Dancing Feet
Sport programs
ELLT
Safari Montage Team
Smarter Balanced Site Coordinators (Interim and Summative)
Middle school math articulation with AVUHSD
After school tutoring
TEAL
SAMR
Support Providers for New teachers
Association (union work)
AVID certification
Boys Town
New ELA curriculum
Math Curriculum 2nd year implementation
CCSS
Number Talks
Chromebooks
Smart Notebook lessons
Google tools
NGSS shift
STEM
Project Lead The Way
BYOD management
Digital citizenship
Special Ed (GATE, EL, RSP, 504, SST)
Illuminate
New grading system
Fast ForWord
Understanding the LCAP goals+
Responder tools
Assessment tools
LMS systems
Websites
On-line Math Homework curriculum
ALEKs
Big Brainz
Front Row Math/ELA
