Most of the pedagogical epiphanies that I have experienced over the summer were listed in the previous blog post.  As we have entered the frenzy of the new school year, I have noticed that I am a bit bolder about putting these new initiatives into place.

I’m now on YouTube!  I mastered the technology of annotating work with a stylus so I can now walk students through problem sets through the online tutorials.  As I have told my students, “you can now take me home with you!” (OK, sometimes accompanied by groans, as in “why would I want to do THAT?”  But just wait until I film a tutorial wearing my Viking helmet!!  They seem intrigued.  These are the baby steps into flipping some class content or at least differentiation for students needing to “re-run” a lesson.  Cool!

I am using remind101 to text reminders to students.  It really is just another way to bridge the gap between in and out of school.  On of the biggest problems we have is the “out of sight (class), out of mind” mentality of our struggling students, and this way I can be in their mind, as long as they sign up.  I’m working on that.

I’m energized.  Same content I’ve taught for 12 years, but renewed for fresh approaches.  That’s a tremendous boost to take into the new school year.

As I grind through the many pieces that are going to go into the 4-H curriculum I keep coming up with moments of, “I can’t wait to share this!” – with my students and with fellow teachers.  The conceptual discovery of the central importance of the microbiome is enough to wax poetic about for a few days.  I am certain that my unit on biodiversity will look very different this year and probably on into the future.

Mechanically I am actually going to flip a few lessons.  Baby steps on this one, probably because I just detest myself on video.  Maybe just a voiceover to start with.  I envision poster creation using the cool poster sites like Easel.ly.  I foresee using Socrative.  I now have a Twitter account for directing science news towards my students (and opening up another means of communicating classroom news besides Moodle, School Fusion, and PowerSchool.) QR codes will have a place in my instruction.

If only every teacher could have the opportunity or had the will to dive into professional development like we have this summer.  Imagine how energized we could be in the face of the state that’s trying to rob us of so much.