It Cannot Be The End of the Year---Already????

Wow, where has the time gone. I cannot believe tomorrow is already May1st. This year's PTP cohort has been a huge learning experience for me not only as a teacher but also as a new Ed Tech coach. As I think back to September when Tracey and I started planning the entire PTP Cohort process, I thought we were out of our minds. As a new ITF, I was still wrapping my own mind around the concept of coaching and even what the ISTE standards were. But, like anything else--it's best to jump in and either sink or swim. In my true fashion, I chose to tread water really fast and hope I didn't drown :)

 (This was Tracey and I after we had finished creating 

the PTP Cohort Self-Assessment--relieved and exhausted) 

Meeting for the first time with all of the volunteers for the inaugural cohort was nerve wracking. I knew we would have participants from across the boards, but I didn't realize how challenging it was going to be to divide and conquer even as the newly created "Tech Trio" of Mooresville High School. 

(Where would I have been this year without my team?)

Nonetheless, we found a way and quickly established our own individual cohorts for the year. I was lucky to land with the AP teachers. I felt for my first time as a coach, this was something I was familiar with and being that I was still in the classroom, I was going to gain a great deal from this experience as a coach and a teacher.  I sure did!  Since AP teachers are known to be just as overly ambitious like the students they teach, we quickly established we wanted to meet weekly via Google Hangouts. None of us had much experience in this platform, but it was an exciting endeavor. I grew to look forward to my Sunday afternoon chat sessions with my group.  I learned that our content really didn't matter because we were facing many of the same challenges when it came to integrating technology into our curriculums--too much content, not enough time, and a final exam that was still "old school" paper. There was also a fine line we walked between integrating technology just to make the lessons "cooler" and integrating tech to make them "most effective".  I like to think that this last line became the theme for our cohort this year, and I truly believe we made tons of progress. 

Some of the highlights for me from working with the PTP cohort this year was taking an idea/ dream and with my Tech Trio, nurturing and raising this idea to a reality. Because of this idea and our dedication to the cause, Tracey and I were able to present this concept at NCTIES 2015 in February and bring along some of our participants and lead teachers for the three days.  It was a blast to attend another tech conference and learn alongside my coworkers, but it was even better to see my fellow teachers' eyes opened to new ideas and strategies to use in their own classrooms. 

Our Awesome Teachers at ISTE 2015 

I'm exited that our PTP Cohort is continuing to drum up interest and this summer Tracey and I will be taking it to Philidelphia and the ISTE 2015 conference to share what we have learned. In a way, we have come full circle because the idea of a PTP Cohort was kind of dreamed up at ISTE 2014 last year in Atlanta, as well as our dream to present at ISTE one day. 

I'm looking forward to what is in store next year for this experience. There is much I have learned, a lot that we did well, and some things I will do differently for next year. I'm still treading water, but at this point----I'm keeping my head above it!

Using Smoop as a tool to review for AP Exam!!!!

We just recently begin using Smoop in our AP classes as a means to review for the test. So far, I've been very pleased with this program because it allows my students to take a diagnostic test and immediately gain their score and feedback to where they are weak. Then, the program customizes their review experience based on their weak standards and skills. There in itself the program is worth it's weight in gold because it cuts out a significant amount of prep work on my part as the teacher and allows me to differentiate per students in a timely manner. I also really enjoy how it continues to give students an idea of where they stand (1-5) in terms of AP score. I'm interested to see if it will aid our performance on the overall test.

Returning after Spring Break and the Final Push

We returned from spring break two weeks ago, and now we are really into the final push of the school year. Today, our principal mentioned we had 36 instructional days left before exams. I gasped because I couldn't believe we were already to this point in the school year. As an a first year ITF, this year has been such a wonderful learning experience for me. Balancing working as an ITF and also continuing to teach my AP class has been hard work, but some of the best work I have done in a really long time. I come to work every day excited for what my day has in store for me, and I go home every night thinking about what I want to try for the next day. I've already started to make a list of things I want to implement for next school based on what I have observed this initial year, and where I want to move towards.

One thing I know for sure is these next 36 instructional days are going to be so crucial for our teachers and students, and in my role I really need to focus on how I can best help my teachers in planning engaging lessons, creating remediations and review sessions, etc. At the end of the day, we all win together and we lose together as a team. I want to make sure that I do my part to help us all win together in this last stretch.

NCTIES 2015 and then Life After

Going to conferences is always fun. I love being able to connect with other educators and learn new things. When I'm attending conferences, my head swims with new ideas and strategies I want to immediately take back to my school and implement on Day #1. As I travel through sessions with my co-workers,  we become giddy with the educational revolution we are cultivating. We gather resources like greedy little squirrels who are preparing for winter or the next conference we will be able to afford to attend. We collect our educational "swag" and leave the conference feeling intoxicated with our new found knowledge dreaming of digital resources and poster makers--our own little Utopia High School. Then, the first day back occurs and we get sucked into the grind of bell schedules, make-up work, testing, covering material and our ideas and the memories of the revolution we wanted to start----begin to fade. Why does it have to be this way?

In my new role as an ITF, I attended the NCTIES conference with a very different lens than I had attended conferences in the past. Previously when I attended as a teacher, I was always on the lookout for ideas and resources that would benefit me as a teacher, my students, and my classroom. This year, my approach different because I was viewing the conference on behalf of my entire school--all content areas and all types of teachers. Normally, I would have avoided attended sessions on Math or Science being a former English teacher because they did not apply to me. While this time, I found myself wandering into all types of sessions looking for resources and ideas to bring back to the staff. In a way, I felt like one of the "pickers" on the American Pickers television show looking for a "good deal" that would profit my teachers.

However, I'm now faced with a similar situation. How can I take everything I learned and effectively disperse and share it with the faculty?  I've done my gathering and now I need to do my categorizing and prioritizing so to say.  In addition to that, how to I take some of the resources I learned and share them with my PTP and will they see the value and gain the same things from there resources that I did? I guess that is my goal moving forward.

Learning to Incorporate Technology in an Authentic and Meaningful Way

"Is this just substitution?"

"By choosing to incorporate this tool, will my lesson be more authentic?" 

"Am I just trying to make this lesson look Cooler?..or are my choices really redefining the learning outcome for my students?"


For the last couple of weeks, these ideas have been tumbling around in my head.  Since I began my graduate work at Appstate, these questions have been ones we have tossed around quite a bit. In conjunction with these questions, my school district is embarking on a total REFRESH for next school year. I'm super excited about all of these upcoming changes, but I'm also a little leery too. It's easy to get new computers, but the level of REFRESH that we are looking at involves overhauling instruction too, and it also means rethinking and redefining the way we are teaching.

Part of this training has led us to explore the SAMR model of teaching. I will admit, prior to our talks about refreshing what we are doing for next year, I had not heard of the SAMR model. Quite frankly, when I would sit down to plan lessons I did not consider all of these elements. Now, when I think back to all of those Sunday nights I would spend lesson planning and wondering if what I was doing was rigorous enough, I would have liked to have had this model to compare them too.

For some, understanding SAMR can be hard to understand. Clearly, there is an above or below the line approach to lesson planning with this model. I think above/below the line has a negative connotation associated with it. Sometimes, we need to get back to the basics and sometimes I kid simply needs a study guide or guided note-taker---but not all of the time. I prefer the idea of swimming in the shallow or deep end of the pool. It feel great when one can make it to the deep end and swim with ease; however, we cannot stay in the deep end, always. We have to toggle back and forth or we will drown. It's important for teachers to understand that they don't have to re-do everything they are already doing. Simply put, they can start to move or redefine some aspects of their teaching or lessons--not everything. As an instructional coach, it's important for me to remember to nurture my teachers through this process and to keep reminding them that swimming in the SAMR pool is not about staying in the deep end always. Personally, one of my favorite things in this world is a good cup of Starbuck's coffee, so when I saw this info graphic related to SAMR--suddenly it all made sense.  Sometimes we need a good o' cup of coffee and sometimes we are in the mood for a full blown pumpkin spiced latte.

Am I really making a difference?

I've been thinking a lot lately about my role as an instructional coach at school. I've been questioning if i'm taking the right steps, delivering the best materials, offering the "right" kinds of help. Am I really helping my colleagues to grow in their instructional practices and use of technology? I'm busy all day; there is no question about that, but am I really making a difference?

When I was in the classroom, it was easier to see the fruits of my labor. Actually, I saw them daily. I could teach a concept and immediately gage if my students "got it!" I could create and then deliver lessons, and I knew right away if it was working or not based off of how engaged my students were.

Working with adults is much more difficult; it's a harder process to diagnose the needs of my co-workers at times, and then it's an even slower process to put a plan into place. There is no pre-defined curriculum for instructional coaching. It's almost like working triage in an emergency room. I simply go where duty calls--and I'm good with that. I enjoy the ever shifting pace of my day. However, during the ever shifting pace of my day, I want to make sure it's purposeful and truly helpful. It's storage because when I was a teacher, I would dream up lessons in my head and then spend all day on Sunday creating lessons that I knew I could try out the next day in class.

Today, I still have have ideas rolling around and I want to create, but finding the right audience for those ideas is more challenging. Now, I spend my time thinking about instructional strategies that can be used across all content areas instead of how I can make my students really understand Heathcliff's motives for revenge in Wuthering  Heights. I guess I'm just creating for a different audience now :)

Nonetheless, I want to see my co-workers grow and develop and transform their own teaching and learning to ultimately benefit all of the kids in our school. I want to make sure that I am providing my teachers with the very best resources and instructional coaching I can provide, and I want to see them be successful so badly. I want to see them inspired and feel great about themselves. So here's to continual learning for not only me and my colleagues. Together we will navigate this "road less traveled" and I know it will "make all the difference."  ~I will always be an English teacher at heart.

Rethinking the Way We Use Google Tools for AP Classes

Since the beginning of the second semester, my PTP cohort has been focusing on ways we can better incorporate Google Drive and its tools more effectively into our classrooms. Actually, as an ITF we have been pushing for our teachers to use Google Drive more verses the applications on our students' machines in an attempt to better organize their work and also make it where students can keep their work from year to year. At the beginning of second semester we met as a cohort and brainstormed ways we could use Google Drive and its add ons in our upcoming units.

In order to kick us off, I created a Tackk with various "how-to"s and things to think about regarding Google Drive. This was a good starting point for members of my cohort who didn't have much experience with Google Drive to learn the basics before we started talking about how we could incorporate Google's components and at a higher lever of Bloom's where we ideally want to be in AP.

So far, everyone has set a small, workable goal for incorporating these tools. For example, Lisa, an AP US History teacher in my cohort, has experimented with having students write essays on a Google Document and then use the comments feature to respond to each others work. I have incorporated Google Presentations in my class for Jane Eyre and assigned multiple students to collaborate on one presentation for their assigned chapters. Erika, and AP Language teacher, is trying to use Google Sheets to create a data tracker for her students to track their progress on standards in her class.

At this point, I'm really pleased with the progress we are making so far. I'm excited that we are all experimenting in different areas, so we can share ideas and spread the knowledge between our classes to impact more students.