As I desperately searched for answers to serve my students better with what I had, I began to find my teacher tribe. One of those people was our school's ITRT, Stacie (@sctaylorITRT) . She opened up a whole new world to me that I felt silly for not knowing existed. Right under my nose was, what I felt to be, a myriad of new and innovative outlets, tools, and forums that I could use to transform my classroom. This began to change my mindset of what my role is as an educator.
In the past, usually at a professional development session, I would learn something new and think, "Do all the things with all the levels all the time!!" I would then go back to my regularly scheduled program of whatever it was I'd been doing because I had completely and utterly overwhelmed myself (and was probably already overwhelmed to begin with). Insert feelings of guilt, inadequacy, etc. This time I decided to try new things. Even if it was just with one lesson in one level of my class. Slowly but surely I have built a small toolbox for myself. It's steadily growing. I've jumped into the world of Twitter to build my PLN (professional learning network). I'm connecting with other educators, learning from them, finding great resources, books, posts, lesson experiments from other teachers, new ways to deliver instruction, and much more. Making these connections is helping me to grow, learn, reflect, change things, try them again, change more things, be inspired, be excited, and be better every day for those I serve. The people I serve are the reason I desire so strongly to continually improve. I need to be able to give them the best of me.
Perhaps you are wondering what I teach. (Or if you know me you might be wondering, 'When does she talk about her chickens?' Don't worry. I will fulfill all of your dreams with a chicken post soon.) I teach German. I take that back. I teach kids. I love that I get the opportunity to serve teenagers Monday through Friday. You read that right. Teenagers. They are my calling. My content is German, languages, our global community, the world stage. My mission is to help my students make connections with the world through the portal of another language, to show them that there is a whole new world out there with a fascinating culture and lovely people, and to convince them that they can be apart of and contribute to it. I am a lover of languages and am constantly striving to improve my own skills in a few others that I speak. This bleeds into what I do in the classroom. I can't help it, which is great. So how do I translate this for my students? I've been trying to be less of a "sage on the stage" lately. Giving my students a chance to personalize their learning and have more autonomy in the classroom is having an impact. Here are a couple of things I've tried:
- Flipgrid
- Padlet
- Hyperdocs - created my very first one recently! You can find it here. (I'd love any feedback or suggestions!)
- Google MyMaps
- EDpuzzle
- Pear Deck
- our library's new green screen
- Comprehensible Input
I am feeling inspired on a daily basis to try new things and make things more relevant for my students. That being said, my deepest desire is for my students to know that they are loved, they are cared for, and that they can be a light in this world by the way they treat others. If they leave my cozy corner of the language world knowing this and are forever changed, I've done my job.
Have you stepped out of your comfort zone lately? What is most important to you that your students have learned from you? I'd love to hear your ideas!
From Snowy Virginia,
Robyn
No comments