It's Never Too Late to Make Changes

I started posting on this blog again around the time of EduCon 2.6 this year. I was able to meet some great people over that weekend and had my first opportunity to talk with someone in person about one of my posts. The information I took out of the conversation sessions is priceless and I still have a list of people I want to follow on Twitter and communicate with about ideas that were shared.

The biggest takeaway I had from EduCon and the weeks that have followed is that it is never too late to make changes. I've been very set in the ways of what I do, even though it never has the results I'm looking for. Making changes has either been "too much work" or "too much of a risk" for me. Once I started really thinking about what I needed to do, I started to realize that "too much work" is a sorry excuse for just saying "I don't feel like it right now." As for "too much of a risk," since I haven't been getting the results I was hoping to get, I figured what do I have to lose.

For your enjoyment (mostly mine, but you are welcome to enjoy them too) here are four major changes that are taking place with me right now.

• Change 1: Classwork System
• Change 2: Gamification
• Change 3: CrossFit/Whole30/Paleo
• Change 4: Making and Tracking Goals

EduCon and a New Outlook

Day One of EduCon 2.6 at Science Leadership Academy is in the books and to say it was informative and amazing would be an understatement of epic proportions. I enjoyed meeting a bunch of people who have great ideas and sound advice and was fortunate enough to add to my own little network of connected educators. I could spend a lot of time going over everything I took out of the first day (and maybe it will become a post of its own after Day Two) but I want to just write about my biggest takeaway.

Since I started this blog last year, I've posted questions to myself and tried my best to come up with answers. At times I wrote reactively and sometimes wonder if I still feel the same way about my initial thoughts. The beauty of all of this is that meeting up with other people can give me a new perspective on what I originally thought and allow me to change how I view those original posts (which could make for an interesting new post). After today, I'm starting to get a better sense of what I can do about whatever situation I am facing. Being able to spend the day with a school full of thinkers, innovators, high-achievers, and whatever other descriptor you can think of shows me that it is possible to make this whole teaching thing work. If all I am going to do is ask myself questions about why or how things are the way they are, I'm not going to get anything done. Update: I'm not against questions as a way to start a conversation, but I have a nasty habit of trying to find questions that are irrelevant or have no answer and use them as excuses. 

In the grand scheme of things, I'm still a relatively new teacher and I know I haven't mastered everything I want to master yet (and really, what teacher ever will?). What I need to do is to remind myself to look for the answers to the relevant questions in my world. There are thousands of people out there blogging and on Twitter that can help me. If I can stick to that, it might not be smooth sailing, but at least I'll have an idea of where I want to go and the support to get me there.

What are my plans for next year?

As June gets closer and closer, I start to think about what I've done this year (and the previous four) and what I want to do next year. Every year I know there are lessons and topics that I've covered that have gone well and others I'd just as soon pretend never even happened. In five years of teaching, I know that I've definitely improved on some of my practices but I feel that parts of what I do are stuck in a rut. We live in an age where the power of technology is everywhere yet I still have not completely harnessed that power for good.

In five years, I've given lectures on topics and asked students to take notes and complete classwork and homework. I've followed the curriculum that my district has set and used that as my gauge of student progress. There have also been times where I've created projects that require the students to do some research or figure main points out on their own. At times, I've turned some classes loose with a basic concept and watched them take it to places that they didn't think they could. I've had boring classes and exciting classes, great ideas and cover-your-eyes-awful ideas. On my own time, I've spent hours reading and thinking about what I want to try in my classroom (20% time, flipped classroom, social media, project based learning, and more) and never completely convincing myself that I can do it. In short, I have been conducting my classes in a 20th Century Classroom and not the 21st Century Classroom I believe I should have. As I look through the list of qualities of 20th and 21st Century Classrooms that Dr. Z has posted, I realize that there are so many opportunities that my students and I are missing out on experiencing.

Five years as a teacher is a big deal to me. I've had multiple careers (not just jobs) and the longest amount of time I have spent in any one of them is about four years. Teaching is what I plan to do for the rest of my working life. I know that I want to be in this field for the next 30 years, but I also know that I need to make it more enjoyable and effective for me and my students.

So, in no particular order, I give you my list of Things to Do Next Year...