ENTER A MEMBER OF MY PLN
LOCATION: HALLWAY
In the hallway yesterday, Drew (my principal) stopped me to offer encouragement and to clarify any potential confusion I may have about September's blog a month post. The amazing thing about the exchange was how honest and real it was. I am fortunate to work in an environment where this is the norm, but I still realize how special it is. As you may know, from reading my last post, I have a type A personality. Drew knows me so well that he told me to be myself and to blog for myself, a perfect specimen of a blog was not necessary. (DING DING DING:PERFECTLY IMPERFECT). This kind of familiarity with my personality and the interest he showed in my blog inspires me to push even harder and continue to reach toward my personal and professional goal of creating and maintaining my own blog. Additionally, Drew's twitter feed and personal blog provide me with resources and ideas that I can apply and modify for use in my Hebrew / Judaics classroom.
TAKE AWAY: MY PLN WANTS ME TO CONTINUE TO GROW AS MUCH AS I DO
ENTER A MEMBER OF MY PLN
LOCATION: ISRAEL & GOOGLE DOCS
Other vital members of my PLN would be the teachers that I connect with all over the country that attended the Pardes Summer Learning Program. We spent a month this past July studying in Israel, as well as providing each other with new resources that could expand our current practices and curriculum. To maintain this PLN Pardes created a closed Facebook group, and a shared google doc that contains the resources we shared and / or created. These include teacher created worksheets, websites like Sefaria, and even rubrics. This network has allowed me to reach an even higher quality of curriculum then I had before. Specifically with my 2nd graders. Last year what I was doing was great, but I still felt that there was a way I could streamline the presentation of the information for my students and take it to the next level. Looking to my PLN of Jewish Educators helped me to find what I was searching for.
TAKE AWAY: SHARING AND BRAINSTORMING WITH YOUR PLN CAN ONLY ADD TO THE QUALITY OF TEACHER YOU ARE.
Rebecca--this is such a neat blog, and I am so grateful for this particular post because I, too, tend to come up with ideas while I am driving. Unlike you, though, I haven't taken the time to get them down on paper--still working on that time management thing. :) Thanks so much for reminding us of what is important. Great post!
ReplyDeleteI'm with you, Rebecca! And with Sharon - the best ideas come to me on my drive home. I actually have a section in my bullet "to do" journal where I write "Ideas for Next Year." After 10 years of teaching, I still have some of the same ideas that I've had from the first year of teaching...but it's also neat to see how I've fulfilled a lot of those "to do's" over the years.
ReplyDeleteI'm with on the Type A personality - we strive for that perfection and sometimes get so lost in looking for that, we can't just be ourselves and get the task accomplished. I like how inspirational this entry was and can't wait to hear about your soap box coming soon!