Month: November 2016

One requirement of Kenan is that you must develop a Personal Remote Learning Plan (PRL). A PRL is very similar to North Carolina State’s Professional Development Plan. I was very excited this summer to find out that we would get a chance to go to a Legislative Summit, so I decided to do my PRL on improving my teacher leadership. Unfortunately, asbestos was found in the legislative building so our summit was postponed to this upcoming spring/summer. I still plan to attend the summit as I think it is a critical part to me understanding how to become a better leader in my field.

Since the summit was postponed, I chose to attend the 2016 NCSTA (North Carolina Science Teachers Association) Conference in October. The two days were packed full of amazing presentations and my brain was on overload. It was almost like I had stepped back into the summer at NCAT with all my other Kenan Fellows. The conference gave me tons of ideas that I am currently trying out with my students and sharing with other teachers.

One thing I wish I could share with all my colleagues is the experiences that I have had with the Kenan Fellows Program. Their professional learning programs are unlike anything that I have been to. They keep me fully engaged, pushing me to my limits and beyond. If every teacher got to experience just one day of a Kenan Learning Program I know they would be changed forever. I have taken numerous things back into my classroom and engaged every student, often pushing them beyond their comfort zone. So I must say thank you Kenan for continuing to change my life as well as the students.

 

So, I’m not really sure if this counts as a new tool or strategy but one thing I have done this year differently is I created a lunch club called eMammal for students who are interested in science. We meet every Wednesday at lunch and explore the world of science. This group of students not only deals with the eMammal project directly, but also explores a variety of different science experiments.

Many students can’t stay after school for a particular club so making it during the day allows an opportunity that wouldn’t necessarily be there. As a new teacher I have all these great ideas of things that I would like to try and this smaller group allows me to see if it would actually be reasonable on a larger scale. Many of us know that experiments with 15-20 students is much easier (and affordable) than with 140 students. The students have kind of become a panel for me to bounce ideas back and forth to get a students perspective on what its like for them. Feedback from these students have helped me rework lessons, build on old things, and even try some new materials with all of my classes.

Like I said I’m not sure is this is considered a new “tool”, but I know that my teaching style changes almost each week for the better because I decided to take on this eMammal Team.