Connected Learner

The easiest and most important way for maintaining a growth mindset has been through observations of classes and conversations with my coworkers. By seeing and hearing firsthand what methodologies they have used, I have been able to adapt activities into my own classroom. For the techniques that I did not use, I was able to document them for later use. I am not that far detached from my own educator preparation program which has benefited me in that many of the practices are still fresh in mind. On many occasions I will refer back to the Blackboard classes or educational texts I have for strategies I can use. On a personal level, both of my siblings and my brother-in-law are all educators who provide a huge wealth of knowledge. While I am significantly younger, between the three of them, they have almost 40 years of combined knowledge in educating English language learners, special education, physical education, social studies, law, and mathematics. The ability to pick up the phone or talk face-to-face about their struggles and successes in education has been immeasurable in my growth.

In addition to my recent formal education, I constantly find myself referring to everything from blog posts to educational Twitter in order to gain inspiration. One of the draws to education has been the collective effort of teachers to make public the resources which ensure the success of their students. There is no jealousy or cutthroat environment in order to gain promotions; only shared success. During my time within my undergrad, my course on “Teaching and Learning in the Digital Environment” tasked me with utilizing the ISTE standards for any lessons I created. From then on, I have always found the ISTE organization, the many resources they publish, and their standards to be of immense assistance.

As established previously, I make use of my time in the school as much as possible by discussing pedagogy with other educators. When meeting with educators outside of school, whether it be family, coworkers, or educators in other states entirely, I find that we often speak at length about what efforts we have gone through to plan and execute lessons. While this has the additional benefit of being cathartic, it also gives an opportunity to connect with people outside of my content area or geographical area about what may exist outside of my experience.

The aforementioned methods will all help me better understand the needs of the staff members and students at my school. I plan to also publish links for feedback for all members of the school to directly offer feedback to help me best support them. For those that do not feel comfortable offering feedback by talking with me or through digital feedback, my direct relationship with my administrators and any department chairs should also help provide natural avenues for staff and students to convey their needs.