As you prepare for the 2012-2013 school year, describe how you envision your summer experience impacting your students.

When I consider all that I learned this summer and how I will distill and apply even a portion of that learning, I have a sense of shire excitement and a sense of how will I convince other teachers to participate with me. As a Math Coach I work with all the teachers in our K-5 school.  My role is to work with teachers to enhance math instruction.  Part of my project can be connected with math but it aligns more with the social studies standards. So I’m trying to balance both.

Before school started I had a meeting with two of my teacher friends.  We were meeting to discuss our plans to support teachers in flipping lessons using the Teacher Leadership Grant money from Wake Education Partnership.  I didn’t have time to share all that I’d learned about flipping at this particular meeting but I did share all the books I’d purchased over the summer. I found a wonderful resource during my fellowship at the North Carolina Council on Economic Education, Teaching Children Economics Using Children’s Literature. My librarian teacher friend, wrote down all the titles and said that she would love to teach my lessons!  My school counselor friend, said that she would also like to use some of the books I shared with the economic principals because she saw the positive character message in the stories as well.  I hit a Home Run on the first time out!

I guess I’ve learned from that positive experience that if I take the time to appeal to the content of the individual teachers that I work with rather than pushing my own agenda they will see the value and make it their own because it’s great material and I won’t have the be the “sales woman” for my fellowship lessons.

Here’s to a wonderful, hopeful, impactful year of balancing math instruction, flipping classroom lessons, and integrating my Kenan Fellowship project into the curriculum with accepting, excited teachers!  I’m confident this will be successful!