NCCAT can best be summarized by our rafting trip: have fun, learn lots and work as a team. I really enjoyed NCCAT and getting to know the other Kenan Fellows. It was a pleasure to be with very bright teachers who are innovative and love teaching. I learned so much from these teachers and have many new ideas I want to implement in my classroom. There are so many new things I want to implement but in order not to be overwhelmed I have picked a few to start with.
I plan to make sure I try to get our students to see how things connect cross curriculum. I hope in our PLT’s to implement more cross curriculum ideas. We meet in PLT’s in subject matter and I want to try to see if we can meet as a Team to plan Cross Curriculum. At the very least I will have on my Board cross curriculum material as it relates to the science topic I will be teaching. On my board, I list daily, What students know ( real world examples), What we will Do ( topic we will learn), List of what we will do, the classroom plan, What they will know by the End of Class (assessment) and Homework. After the first few weeks, students also help in finding real world examples relating to the curriculum. I will have them do this with Cross Curriculum Material. I already try to incorporate cross curriculum materials in my class in Math and Language Arts since I teach or taught them before. I think it is important for absorption of materials and seeing topics in broader context, that we reinforce them Cross Curriculum when possible.
I also hope to do more in Informatics. Many of my students are visual learners and by having them use infogr.am or other websites this will help them learn to display their data and also make data more meaningful to them and others who view their results.
I also liked the concept of Edcamp. So many times PD is not what we need at the time and also we never have time to talk with the many experts we have within the building to solve issue or enhance the education of our students. I hope we will can implement this in our school one day. This also would help with team building of our staff.
Surprising my least favorite session was the one on Parent/Community support. This was surprising since I am a big supporter of parent education and community involvement. I ran a Community In Schools Program for five years in a high needs school. I had many parent education classes from ESL to how to help their children with school and had a weekly resource newsletter, ran clubs at schools, connected many parents to resources etc… I think first the speaker who started by insulting NCCAT did not sit well with me. I felt we were treated so well and although she kept complaining about having no TV and the food, maybe she was used to higher “living”, we were all happy and grateful. I also did not like that one speaker was late so the other speaker to fill time, spoke for 30 minutes about what food she liked in LA. She should have had a backup plan if the other speaker was late and more skills she could teach us. There were many topics they did not cover with concrete ideas to help build parent support in our schools.
I think NCCAT was a great way to start the Fellowship. It gave us many ideas and started the team building process. It also energized me to get ready to work hard. We finished school on Thursday, I worked on Friday and the following week on a new summer program at Science House, then went to NCCAT without a break from our busy school year. NCCAT was a way to; enjoy, team build, learn from others, learn new skills and continue the journey of the Kenan Fellowship without the raft but with the supports we need.