Connecting with families and the community!

If you are looking to develop more of a partnership in learning with your families and the local community, please look to my vision in developing this critical partnership and ideas to get you and your school started.

Vision for Partnership

•I envision Teachers, Parents and Community members working together to foster the education of all of our students.

•A school needs to establish a culture of respect and an environment that promotes learning.

•Parents and Community Members need to feel welcome in the school.

•Parents and Community Members can be a great resource for schools to enhance the learning that is taking place within the school day and after.

•“At the heart of all successful partnerships are successful relationships.” (Johnston, J. H., 2009, p.24)

Proposed Activities/Strategies

•Establish a Parent Room where parents feel welcome, and have resources to help them with their student.

•Homework Help Night with Parents-Teachers could model a lesson/multi-step Math problem and students and parents could work together on the problems.  This would help to build more confidence when parents try to help their child and can enhance communication.

•Cultural Affair – Celebrate diversity in school, all feel welcome, incorporate history, language, and cultures. Parents and students need to feel a connection with their school, teachers, and staff should make an effort to celebrate the diversity in their schools.  It is important that we engage parents in a two-way dialogue that imparts no judgment to establish a respectful and trusting relationship. (Eberly, J. L., Joshi, A., & Konzal, J, 2007, p.23)

•Community Wide Event – Community members, parents, and Teachers work together, learn about their environment, solve problems together and utilize the resources all stakeholders bring to the table.

Happy Teaching and Connecting!

•Eberly, J. L., Joshi, A., & Konzal, J. (2007). Communicating with families across   cultures: An investigation of teacher perceptions and practices. School   Community Journal, 17(2), 7-26.

•Johnston, J. H. (2009). Dancing partners: Schools & businesses. School   Administrator, 66(9), 24-28.

 

Go for your Goals!

Goal setting is a great time to work with your fellow educators to improve in your individual teaching practice and to improve as a school.  Use the following structure to set up your own goal setting professional development for your teaching team or PLC (Professional Learning Community) or for your next staff meeting.  

›Steps and Time: 

›5 minutes:  Each group member will spend five minutes reflecting on their teaching practice, personal goals, building, and district goals.  They will write down their ideas to share with all group members.  (Record on data collection sheet)

›5 minutes:  Groups members share their ideas and identify the needs of the group.  (Record on data collection sheet)

›10 minutes:  Engage in team-building activity to demonstrate the importance of the team, enhance collaboration amongst team members and to get the wheels turning for ideas of how to improve the PLC for all of our teachers. 

›10 minutes:  Group discussion of activity and record recommendations of the group for future PD sessions and to improve the PLC (Record recommendations on data collection sheet)

›15 minutes:  Whole Group reconvenes to discuss their findings and share out what was learned from the PD session.  (Record group findings on data collection sheet)

The following link can be used to record notes for your group.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sdhsNCGguLBj7eRDb1vj0IXYdjFwDmUhh8TfzEqFzBg/edit?usp=sharing

Happy Teaching and Goal Setting!

PD for Me and Hopefully You Too!

While I have many sites that I love to use for growing my professional practice, one of my favorites and always a go-to for helping me and my team at school is the Cult of Pedagogy.  If you are looking to get right to it and get an overview of a new strategy or tool you would like to use in your classroom, or even be inspired by something you haven't heard of, the video section of this site is where you need to be.  The video section of the site breaks your new learning into the following categories:  instruction, classroom management, educational technology, and advice for teachers.  You simply select a category of interest and you will be connected to many youtube videos to help you develop lessons and a strong classroom.  I hope you find this site helps you in your classroom.  Please click on the link provided. 

Happy Teaching and Learning!

https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/videos/

Finding balance at home and in the classroom

Many people go to work each day feeling like they are on this never-ending treadmill with no real direction in life.  As an educator for over 10 years, I can honestly say that my day to day is never boring and never without a greater purpose.  Having said that though, I do need to find time to balance my home and work life because I know that I need to bring my best me to work each day, because my kids deserve all of me.  So how do we find that balance?  I will share some of my tips and tricks with you and hope that you can find that balance in your life. 

Tips and Tricks

1.  Remind yourself daily why you do what you do and for who you do it. 

2.  Think about what you accomplished for that day instead of thinking about all that you have yet to finish.

3.  Surround yourself with positive people and make time for them, they make you happy and keep you sane!

4.  Find time for you, even if it's just 15 minutes.  Take that walk, grab that coffee, chit chat with a colleague.  Do it because you like it and do it every day!

5.  Love your students like they are your own kids.  Be there for them, push them to do their best and model what you expect for them always.  When your students are loving your classroom and learning, you feel great and when you feel great you can do great things!

Happy Teaching and Loving Life!