Learning and Growing as an Educator

Photo Credit: Author (First Year as a Teacher, 2010) Teacher. Lately, I have been pondering the idea of what my favorite thing is that I  do  as a teacher for part of the # YourEDUstory 2015 blog challenge . This has been challenging for me because I love my job and role as an educator, so it is hard to pick just one! As I was pondering this topic, I stumbled along Taylor Mali's poem " Miracle Workers ." In his poem, Mali explores what teachers do and concludes we are workers of miracles. One of my favorite lines from his poem is "I just gave you what I knew you needed before you had to ask for it." This is my favorite thing I do: provide my students with the support, attention, and care that they need. I try to give it my all every day because I want to provide my students with the best possible education.  I, like Mali, believe that "Education is the miracle. I am just the worker." So I will continue to work for miracles....it is my favorite

Photo Source: Author  Challenged as a Student When I think of my favorite teacher, I think of Professor Jones (named changed for confidentiality) from California State University of Long Beach.  I have to ask myself, why is he my favorite teacher?  Why does he stand out in my mind from all of the rest?  As I go over all of the reasons why I valued my time in his class, there is one reason that sticks out among the rest: he challenged me day in and day out. I was lucky to take both a literature course and a composition course from him as I was completing my bachelor's in English Education.  I remember turning in my first draft of a writing assignment for his Applied Composition for Teachers course thinking, I totally aced that first draft.  Several days later I  received his page of direct feedback notating that the draft I submitted would receive a below average mark if turned in as is for the final paper. I remember feeling shocked and stunned as I stared at his comments

"The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education." -Martin Luther King, Jr.  Photo Credit (no changes made): InSapphoWeTrust Tomorrow in my classroom I will start teaching a new unit that I have never taught before: Chew on This! You may have guessed that our major text will be the book Chew on This: Everything You Don't Want to Know About Fast Food , the middle school version of Fast Food Nation , by Eric Schlosser and Charles Wilson. The essential questions for the unit focus on how to make intelligent choices by recognizing how inside and outside forces influence our decisions. In addition to reading the book, students will watch and analyze film clips, TED Talks, advertisements, and more. Throughout the unit my students will start to develop their point of view on the topic in preparation of sharing their claim with others. At this point I am still

My one word intention for 2015 is growth.  As an educator it is essential that I provide the best instruction and experiences for my students.  In order to achieve this, I know that I need to continually grow both professionally and personally.  Keeping my focus on the word “growth” will help me improve my lessons, progress on the SAMR model, and continue to meaningfully connect with my students on daily basis. When I reflect back on writing my teaching philosophy as a new teacher several years ago, I remember pondering growth and stagnation.  I knew that I never wanted to become complacent with my teaching style, curriculum, or role as an educator.  I made a promise to myself to always focus on moving forward and becoming a better educator throughout my journey.  I want to keep up that goal by consciously focusing on growth each day in my classroom as a teacher and outside of my classroom as a I prepare and create for my students.

Inspired by Caine’s Arcade , my Design Thinking students participated in their own Cardboard Challenge.  They started by brainstorming and collaborating for several days using Google Documents and Slides to share and pick the perfect focus for the Cardboard Challenge. They wanted to leave a lasting impact and decided to empathize with the Board Game Club at our middle school. Following the Design Cycle, my students created an original life-size human board game titled “Cops and Robbers.” The creation process took much longer than expected, but I was so amazed by the ability of my students to work together and collaborate as a team for a common purpose.  Even though they divided themselves into groups to accomplish specific components of the game, when one group finished they immediately went to help those in need.   In the testing stage of the Design Cycle, there were many “hiccups” that needed to be fixed prior to its debut. My students worked diligently to get it ready to