Having read a Harvard Business School article about innovation recently, I realized that our systems long-held practice of offering educators summer pay to promote innovative projects is a good one. The invitation to apply for this summer work made me think about where our team is headed with regard to the teaching/learning program. As I thought I found the following topics to take priority.
Interdisciplinary Project Based Learning
Our team wants to move towards creating and promoting more interdisciplinary projects. We want to do this as one way to teach all standards in meaningful ways. Some ways that we've proposed to do this include tying persuasive writing to environmental education/climate change efforts and creating real-world math performance assessments that integrate social studies and science information, utilize a "writer's process" approach to completion, and promote ELA standards related to presentation, discussion, and debate.
Graspable Math
Greater integration of graspable math is on my agenda. I was introduced to this new math platform at the recent ATMIM conference and I've recently tested it out with students. Students really like it and I can see that it deepens their understanding of order of operations, math properties, numeracy in general, and algebraic thinking. I want to explore this platform more and integrate it into the teaching/learning program.
Organization of Curriculum Links, Resources, Projects, and Practice
My Google account is filled with lots and lots of curriculum resources. I want to organize all those files this summer into related content websites to lead our study ahead in the years to come.
Professional Reading
I have a great number of books on my night stand waiting a read. I've carefully chosen these books and look forward to lots of reading this summer. Reading that will likely inspire many more new ideas and integration.
