Monthly Archives: May 2014

May- Value of Blogging

Describe the value of the blog and your intentions for continuing to use it.

I see the value in blogs as a reflective tools, but I am on-the-fence if whether or not this blogging added to my Kenan Fellowship.  I think these Kenan blogs would have been more effective if we had less entry requirements (maybe one every other month), yet had a requirement to respond to 2-3 people with each blog.  That way, there would have been engagement and dialogue across blogs.   Perhaps having prompts around articles or video clips, and then having us respond to those items, would have brought our blogs more together.   Because our Fellowships were all so different and personal, I felt like the blogs remained personal and more of a “checklist” item for each Fellow.  I would have loved for more conversation around unifying topics in order to make this something meaningful.

April- Looking Back

Looking back at your first blog post, did you grow as you had hoped?  Please reflect on your summer externship and Kenan Fellows Program experience and describe how it has impacted you as an educator and person.

 

Quote from first post: “We met in June and started our work together on a productive, encouraging note.  We are driven individuals who complement each other in our work and communication styles.  We have a common vision and goal to positively impact the math instruction in our state for K-2 teachers.”

I love reading this quote, because my first impressions of our team were exactly true.  Christina and Alex have become life-long colleagues and friends.  We have supported each other through the project, but also with our career goals and day-to-day teacher stresses/celebrations.  We are three women with synergy, and together with our mentor, we are a powerful team! Even with set-backs on the distribution of our curriculum, we worked together to champion through it.  Now, we are taking our goal of educating teachers in foundational math skills to the national arena.  We will be presenting our work at NCTM Richmond and NCTM Houston. We are excited that our work is reaching out beyond our local and state communities and feel confident that others will benefit from the information as much as we did!

 

March- Curriculum Accompolished

Congratulations, you’ve finished the arduous task of refining your curriculum!  Reflect on the process and describe how you’d like to see your lessons used both locally and at a larger scale.

It has been an interesting week for our Fellowship team.  One of us is submitting National Boards and is feverishly finishing up editing, one of us just submitted an application for the Governor’s Teacher Network, and one of us is transitioning to a Doctorate program!  Over the week, the three of us discussed Kenan’s impact on these career choices, and how the Fellowship has pushed us to ask, “what’s next?”   Even though our project is completed and submitted, our mentor, Barbara, is still involved in our work and is helping us take our curriculum to even more venues.   We are presenting our work at national conferences in November, and Barbara is setting up additional meetings to showcase our PD.  Our official due-date may have passed, but our team is continuing to gear-up!   Here’s to the next cha