In Less than 30 minutes, I Discovered...

Within being on twitter for 20 minutes I came to the conclusion that the following three tweets were my favorite and stuck out to me the most. 

1) A quote by Jennifer Casa-Todd that was tweeted out by George Couros@gcouros. "Social media is social currency for young people. It is a portal to potential and possibilities, even for people who feel hopeless, uninspired, scared, and alone." This is important to me because this is something that I find very true. Our students who feel isolated in our classrooms even though we try to not make them feel that way, easily are able to go onto to the internet and connect with anybody. That's scary and that comforting, it's scary because the world is a big place but the internet is bigger and you never know what or who is going be discovered. It's comforting though at the same time to know that even if you are not that person who your student comes and talks to, they still feel like they can go talk to someone who relates to them. 

2) In a post made by Dr. Justin Tarte @justintarte, he said "Each student has potential. It might be buried & hidden, but it’s there. As educators, it’s our duty to ensure each student is provided equitable access to success. Sometimes it’s our students we’d least expect who make the biggest splash." This something that I am going to have written all over my classroom and my teacher belongings with in my first year. This way when I with no doubt get frustrated with a student in my first year teaching, I can read this note and remember they need me to be there for them and show them their potential. Because sometimes they can't see it for themselves. 

3) In a link posted by WeAreTeachers @WeAreTeachers title We Need to Do More for Teachers Who Are Exhausted, Stressed, and Burned Out.  One line that really stuck out to me is the excuse "I live in a small town, and there aren't many resources" and their response, not to make this statement an unwanted and unneeded saying but as a suggestion to the problem they say "Get creative with online options."  Not only are they talking about finding sources for the classroom, they also are talking about finding help with someone online, so that everyone in a small town doesn't know your business. Because as a first year teacher it's going to be stressful and if you have to go to a therapist who is also the cousin to your classroom PTA president, it might slip up that you have to see a counselor. Then down the rabbit hole the gossip goes, like it always does in a small town, and inevitably cause parents to say I don't want my students to be in a classroom with an unstable teacher. Causing a rift and disconnect between the parents and the teacher. We all need to take care of ourselves, the fact that while I was reading this and saw that 3 teachers part of BTA all committed suicide within 3 weeks of each other is scary. We need to be there for each other and we need to build a healthy environment not only for our students but also ourselves. 

From RSS Feeds I Discovered

One of the RSS feeds I read was "Using stories to Teach Math" by L.L. Barkat, published on December 22, 2017. This to me is an exceptional idea that I really enjoyed reading. It had to me smiling from ear to ear as I read it. I was smiling so big because the author, L.L. Barkat, is doing something that will eventually truly help students when they get older. All of the examples that Barkat gave were all in the early childhood and development of number sense stages of mathematics. This is what it just seems to be doing, but in reality it is preparing students for those dreaded word problems that everyone struggles with. There is always to much info we get lost in the words, don't know what is important, what is not important. These are all things students struggle with when it comes to doing math word problems. But through introducing math through a story, when we do use those story/word problems it can allow the students to still thrive when before they might have stalled. 

Another reason this idea is an amazing way to introduce math is that every student has a weak subject and a strong subject. Typically it goes that if a student excels in mathematics, then they do not do as well in reading. The opposite goes as well, if a student excels in reading, then math is not their strong suit. What this teaching method does is it allows for development of both the reading and comprehension side of the classroom. As well as the numerical understanding and development of the classroom. For example if a student is really good at math but they struggle to understand the part of a story, having them put the story on  what we are referring to as a number line can help them understand how the story flows. Then we can start saying things like when event number one on the number line is also the introduction to the story, and vise versa. 

Not to mention like L.L. Burkart said "If your classroom is a busy place, I encourage you to take advantage of crossover approaches that teach both literacy and math skills at once. You’ll reduce your workload, and your children can enjoy the richness of dual-duty activities." Everyone has a busy classroom and students now have shorter attention spans unless there is a piece of technology in front of then. This is just because the technology allows them to discover the world at their fingertips, allows them to push past their peers and not be forced to slow down just so everyone can catch up. If as a teacher you can teach almost two lessons in one it engages more students at once and helps you allow them to get back to their passion. 

My Professional Learning Network

Everyone likes working together. It makes life easier, it helps us out when we get confused, it furthers our cognitive skills. All because we are hearing each other's thoughts and ideas. A Professional Learning Network does this for educators. It's like a giant group project that is never ending and right at our fingertips. It allows us to work with other educators, and further our teaching practices beyond what we learn in college. This is important because education practices are forever changing and evolving to fit the needs of our students. 

What I hope to experience through being part of a PLN is a sense of community. I hope that I am able to find a group of teachers that are just as passionate about learning and being able to make the classroom the best learning environments for every single one of their students as much as I am. I am hoping that I will be able to further my knowledge from new teacher and even old teachers about practices they have thought about or tried that worked for them and might work for me. I hope to find a safe place that I can tell people that I failed my students, when I do and not be judge. Instead be told its okay, here is something to help you do better next time. 

I really am interested in different classroom setups and management styles. This way when I do enter into that classroom environment on my own with my own students I hopefully can easily adapt my prepared teaching style to whatever they best need. I really am interested in finding out a lot about different technology new finds that are a really great ideas for the classroom. I think it is important to stay up to date with the technology and the lingo of the students. This way we know what is inappropriate before we have to find out by watching them play it or watch/repeat it in a classroom where everyone has now seen/heard it, and can easily turn around and show/repeat it to someone outside of the classroom. 

One goal for my PLN is to produce helping content for teachers who have students who struggle and excel in math because math is a subject that a lot of teachers struggled with growing up. They then try their best to teach it but might fail and easily lose their faith in their teaching ability over. Another goal for my PLN is to further my knowledge on students with behavioral issues. I really enjoy having these students in my classroom because they push me as a teacher and really require me to think about what I say and do in a classroom. I also want my PLN to be a place as a stated above to celebrate when we succeed and when we fail because those both make us better educators if we can appreciate both.