How do we deepen and develop our craft in ways that matter? Godin's post today led me to an analysis which led me to this post.
As I think about my practice analysis, I am led to the following conclusions about deepening and developing craft.
Learning Design Review and Revision
We have a number of terrific units in place at our grade level, and now is the time to carefully revisit those units looking for ways to develop the teaching and learning. There are many ways in which we can do this.
For STEAM units, we can look at the overall pattern of delivery and participation. As we look at the pattern, we can determine what steps are working and where we need to make change. We can discuss the ways we assess these units as well, and decide if the data provides us with adequate information with which to evaluate the unit delivery. Further, we can watch the videos we've taken of students engaged in these units, and discuss what we notice including factors that should stay the same and factors that might change for the better. We can also attend this summer's STEAM workshop to learn about about this work. There's a lot of work we can do to develop this work.
With regard to math, I want to make the time to think about how I am going to apply the research from Boaler's book to develop each math unit and the overall program. This will take some deep thinking and work in the months to come.
Collaboration and Learning/Teaching Teams
I want to continue to develop the ability and potential of terrific teamwork. Together we can do such great work. There are many team members in our overall teaching/learning team. How we work together and maximize our time and energy to teach children well matters. Beginning with our PLCs and extending to our weekly team meetings, curriculum meetings, outside-of-school-professional-development, and faculty meetings, there's lots that we can do to develop our work in this area.
Presentation and Share
To put together presentations and lead workshops prompts us to organize our efforts well so that others can share in our experiences as we share in their experiences, needs, and questions. To present well develops the work we can do with and for colleagues and students.
These are three areas that will help me to deepen and develop my craft at this time. Thanks to Godin for prompting this path.
