When I first imagined my experience in graduate school, I envisioned reading and regurgitating content and theories alongside systematically following procedural assignments that would teach me educational technology tools to create textbook-like curriculum and lessons. I planned on going through the motions of school and coming out on the other side with a degree that earns me a few more dollars per paycheck and enhances my resume for future education endeavors. Man, I was wrong.
This false sense of reality mirrors my initial expectations of being a teacher in the classroom. I thought I would design and implement lessons that I could continuously recycle year after year, going through the motions of teaching. Professional development might teach me a thing or two that I can bring back to the classroom that would support me changing the lives of my students in the process. Never did I dream that I would be at this point in my life and career, finding myself learning and growing more through experience, trial and error, and collaborative communities that emphasize continuous reflection and adaptation. If you ask me to talk about my journey through life, in and out of school, I likely would not know where to start. It would inevitably be a brain dump of information seemingly disconnected from one idea to the next... but it makes sense in my mind. The only person who loves me enough to tolerate this chaos besides Jesus is my husband Scott. Most of the time, I sense I scare people... Writing and developing my voice to connect the analytical, cognitive side of my perspective to my free-flowing emotional sand spiritual side allows me to take my word vomit ideas and cohesively pain a picture others can view, and hopefully appreciate and be inspired by, to take their own artistry of education and life further. The procedural process of brainstorming ideas, creating an outline, drafting an article, and revising and editing the work based on an abundance of feedback from different perspectives has led me on a voyage to building my courage and bravery to speak louder than my current volume to a larger audience than my collaborative group, my family, and my tight knit community of colleagues at my campus. Promoting my publication through podcasting was definitely a new level of learning too as I relied heavily on my classmates' strengths to create a quality product. Documenting my experience from the burnout (we all need a break) and defeat of student disengagement and lack of student thinking to the renewal of my faith in the future by providing students opportunities to build 21st century skills in a blended learning environment through the lens of mathematics and trying practices from Building Thinking Classrooms by Peter Liljedahl has increased my confidence that my vulnerability will inspire other teachers like me to continue to dream big for our students. I hope to publish at Texas Council of Teachers of Mathematics or National Council of Teachers in Mathematics to expand my community further and speak to other like-minded professionals eager to set sail into the reality of our education future and not the delusion or mirage, figments of our imagination as to what we thought education is. The whole writing process is just what we expect out of our students as we guide them not only to learn our content but also learn to be lifelong learners, continuously evolving, not just going through the mundane motions of life but thrive in adventure and possibility. The work of learning is never done and the journey has more value and fulfillment than any checkpoint or destination. Because of publication consideration requirements, I cannot post my products I created throughout this cycle. However, I do look forward to blogging some day soon with a celebration of formal publication and linking to an official professional website, but in the meantime, keep learning something new every day. I know I am.
References
Conspiracy Charlie Day GIF - conspiracy Charlie Day crazy - discover & share gifs. (n.d.). Tenor.com. https://tenor.com/view/conspiracy-charlie-day-crazy-always-sunny-in-philadelphia-qanon-gif-23738584
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When I first considered my innovation plan, teaching 21st century skills My journey through the Building Thinking Classrooms and being bold in writing for publication has been really encouraging for a number of reasons. Learning that I am not alone in my frustrations with the traditional mathematics classroom brings a sense of comradery but also urgency to collectively disrupt the status quo and establish new norms for the future of education. Being validated in the hard work by instructional coaches and administration has also been reassuring. When feedback from the principal's observation includes "all students were engaged and actively participating in lesson, including students who struggle to find their pacing in other classes. Intentionality of grouping is effective and appreciated. Clear evidence of student retention of and ability to employ skills was observed throughout classroom visit", I know something must be going right. It also has been really empowering to hear how other educators in different roles, schools, and subjects are also transforming education in their own capacity.
Through my master's program, I have been blessed to be a part of a collaborative community that has quite a bit in common but also diversity in our different roles in education. When we review each other's work, these fresh perspectives enhance our own and we can even come together to see the bigger picture of how our individual ripples in the pond are actually making giant waves in the ocean. We realized our impact on inspiring other educators with what we doing is better when we come together. While we have such distinct sets of circumstances, common themes of lifelong learning, play, and opportunity can be felt throughout our work. Relying on the expertise of Amanda Mask with her knowledge of video and audio editing in iCloud, Hillary Turnage and Lindsay Krueger with their knowledge of Canva and its incredible capabilities, and Katie Beauchene with her knowledge of a plethora of educational tools her teachers have played with through her coaching cycles, we decided to commit to spending time having a conversation in a podcast. Our podcast provides a glimpse into what we are writing for publication, promoting our perspective to inspire others to share their voice too. I hope you enjoy listening to our first episode by clicking the EdTech Talks Podcast graphic and become excited to read more in depth about our individual pieces. While my piece is in the middle, it is worth your time to listen and gain perspective on an even bigger picture. Promoting our publications through podcasting brings more opportunity to make waves together. Just because I am a mathematics teacher does not mean I dislike reading and writing. In fact, I remember as a young student, one of my dreams was to be an author and illustrator because escaping into stories opened up the universe in the palms of my hands and I wanted to be a part of that creation. As my education progressed, my writing developed from a fictional foundation to analytical in a variety of subjects:
My learning philosophy is rooted in Jean Piaget’s cognitivist theory, identifying and applying patterns and my experience has strengthened my ability to connect the abstract with vivid imagery as I build particular connections between seemingly unrelated ideas. Just the other day, a student was struggling with remembering how to square a binomial. She kept distributing the square to the terms rather than distributing the terms to each other. I tried showing her a numerical example, yet every time I checked in with her progress, she kept making the same mistake. This simple conversation changed everything.
Mrs. Lee: "You are in wrestling right? How many shoulders do you have to pin to win?" Student, smiling: "Two." Mrs. Lee: "Think of these squared binomials like shoulders, you have to pin both down to win the match, so write both of them to pin them down." That stuck. All I have to do now is walk by and say PIN THEM DOWN, she smiles and builds her confidence in her math abilities. I find myself making analogies, similes, and metaphors constantly to connect the abstract to the concrete for my students and the same is true for my writing. As I have strengthened my voice through my master's program, I am finding myself being bolder with my writing in the sense of sharing my story and journey through life and education with a balance between the creative components of writing and the analytical side. One of my assignments is writing with the intention to submit the work for publication. Some considerations for publications I have found include:
All of these publications have stated that the use of AI is discouraged but if it is used, it needs to be explicitly mentioned. Most require a short biography as well as evidence of other publications. The documents need to be in Word with APA references. Submissions are done via email or directly on the publication website. My writing can go in a variety of directions and with so many options, if rejected, I will adapt writing to meet other publication requirements and needs, but the Texas Council of Teachers of Mathematics Call for Voices from the Classroom fits nicely in my big picture. Thus, I began with an outline and started writing a rough draft about my journey in transforming my mathematics classroom from the past to the future with the practices of Building Thinking Classrooms to build 21st century skills. My Community in Collaboration is diverse, as we serve in a wide range of roles in education, so encouraging each other and providing valuable feedback/feedforward meant establishing a rubric that could easily apply to our various topics and writing approaches. When creating rubrics for students, I have used RubiStar but after exploring ChatGPT, I used AI to generate a rubric for a publication in education. With some adjustments and review from my group, we agreed upon the categories and their breakdown into components and points. These included overall content, organization and structure, writing style and clarity, evidence and support, critical thinking and reflection, and conclusion and implications Not only did we provide comments in each other's rough drafts with all sorts of fixes, adjustments, and considerations, we filled in our rubrics with points and overall feedback/feedforward. Part of the requirements for publication submission is not publishing your work anywhere else, so it would not be appropriate for me to post my rough draft here but you can get a sense of my work from my rough draft peer assessment. Overall, the feedback/feedforward I received validated my perspective but provided meaningful insight on how to enhance it, including fixes to some grammar and punctation, suggestions on how to rephrase ideas to be succinct, and recommendations to bring in more research and literature. The average score I received was a 48.94/50 and honestly, I think my group was generous. Because my imagination and connections are wild and widespread, I tend to be verbose and add unnecessary detail so my clarity can improve. There is also opportunity for me to add more research beyond my classroom setting to demonstrate that my journey is not a fluke but a reality many can experience in their own classroom. Moving forward, I am going to be even bolder and seek feedback from peers at my campus and the district who do not know the context of the graduate school assignment to receive a more comprehensive review of my work. Maybe I will fulfill a childhood dream of being an author in a way I could have neve imagined and be an official published writer! |
My husband lovingly teases me when I reflect on my day with him and say "I learned something new today!" because he would be surprised if I didn't learn something new.
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