What You Never Knew You Wanted To Know

A photo of my family at Old Faithful this summer. They are definitely the most important thing in my life.

This post is part of the 30-Day Blog Challenge from TeachThought. To learn more about the challenge go to www.teachthought.com/teaching/reflective-teaching-30-day-blogging-challenge-teachers/.

DAY 10: Share 5 random facts about yourself...
1) I have a minor in Spanish and have visited Guatemala three times.  On one of the trips, I stayed with a family to practice the language, climbed a volcano, and visited the Mayan temples that have a cameo in Star Wars. During the other two trips, I stayed in a small village and volunteered sorting coffee, planting trees, and completing various construction jobs.
2) I had a bad habit of biting my fingernails all during childhood and until I was in my 20's.  Every once in a while, usually while I'm reading a good book, I catch myself biting a fingernail again without even thinking about it!
3) I like to sing and act. I was involved in many musicals and plays throughout grade school and high school. My freshman year of college, I sewed costumes for the theater department as part of my work-study job.  Nowadays, the closest experience I get to this is acting out all the crazy character voices in the books I read aloud to my sons.
4) My husband is a stay-at-home dad and has been since my eldest son was born. Before we even had children, we always knew that one of us would stay home with them, and he has done an amazing job. We've gotten used to people initially looking at us strangely when we explain our situation, and my husband has reconciled himself to the fact that he'll never really fit in with the stay-at-home mom groups.
5) I love reading all types of books, but I've always had a soft spot for fantasy novels. I read The Lord of the Rings series and the Chronicles of Narnia as a young child, way before I was able to completely understand them. I'm currently reading The Book of Three to my boys and loving all the memories it's bringing back. (Oh, and there are some great character voices to create in reading this book out loud as well!)

Share 4 things from your bucket list...
1) Teach abroad.
2) Visit the Galapagos Islands.
3)  Be in a community theater musical with my boys.
4)  Run a marathon.

Share 3 things you hope for this year, as a "person" or an educator...
1) I shared with my students today that I have one wish for them: "Grow." Grow in their learning, grow in their understanding of the world, grow in their relationships with each other.
2) I am hopeful that each of the teachers I work with as a technology integrationist feels supported in our new initiatives.
3) Finally, and most importantly, I hope that I can continue cultivating strong bonds with my family despite increasing demands from my job.

Share 2 things that have made you laugh or cry as an educator...
1) In one of my first years of teaching, a Senior football player in one of my classes accidentally called me "Mom" in front of the entire class. The other students gave him a hard time for it, and at the time I tried to brush it off to save him some embarrassment. I had a good laugh about it later when I was alone, however!
2) I am the Knowledge Bowl coach for our high school, and I've had some great laughs with these kids. Whether it's goofy answers during practice or funny stories on the bus on the way to a meet, I always enjoy their zany sense of humor.

Share 1 thing you wish more people knew about you.
1) I am a very focused person. This means if I'm working on something at my computer and you try to say something to me, I might not break away my attention. If I'm in a meeting, I don't deal with deviations from the agenda very well.  Even if it appears I'm not "actively" doing something, you can bet my brain is working out some sort of problem or planning and organizing some future activity. Sometimes this comes off as being overly serious or even angry about something, while in reality it's just me concentrating. My husband teases me that I have a "face" that I make when I'm in this mode, and it could be easily misinterpreted as frustration or inattention, when in reality it's a reflection of those gears in my mind spinning.

Dancing With Myself

This post is part of the 30-Day Blog Challenge from TeachThought. To learn more about the challenge go to www.teachthought.com/teaching/reflective-teaching-30-day-blogging-challenge-teachers/.

DAY 9: Write about one of your biggest accomplishments in your teaching that no one knows about (or may not care).

As I've alluded to in earlier posts, I took on a new challenge this year and accepted a position in my district as the part-time K-12 District Technology Integrationist. So, I'm continuing to teach Biology classes in the morning, and then in the afternoon I have time to address technology issues such as working with teachers on developing lessons and helping students with iPad questions (this is the first year of our 1:1 iPad initiative).

I was initially nervous about this change. I am a teacher to the core and would never completely leave teaching for a different role in education. So even this part-time change had me worried. Would it impact my teaching negatively? Would the staff be open to me working with them? Did I have enough technical knowledge to handle the questions I knew would come up?

We are currently in the midst of Week 4 of the school year, and I am happy to report that I'm loving the change in position. I've been able to have more one-to-one conversations with teachers this year than I have ever before. When I was teaching all day, I rarely had time to leave the classroom and observe or interact with my colleagues. Now that my schedule allows for this, I'm learning so much about our district and our teachers. In fact, interacting with other teachers and brainstorming about technology with them has improved my own classroom practice. And continuing to teach my own classes gives me a better insight into what teachers are experiencing. It's the ideal "mutualistic" situation, to use a Biology term.

One thing that has surprised me, however, is the amount of time it takes to solve problems in the technology world. And this is where the topic for today's post begins. There are a few things I didn't know about the world of tech integration before starting this job:

• It turns out that tech companies don't always know why their products don't work.
• A lot of time in the process of decision-making is taken up waiting for stakeholders to weigh in with their opinions or complete their commitments.
• Even though a "fix" works once, it doesn't mean it will work every time.

So how does this relate to the "accomplishments no one knows or cares about?" I'm proud of the fact that despite all of these deterrents, I have been able to help a lot of teachers and students with various technology glitches. To give one specific example, we've been having a problem with students not able to download particular apps from the app catalogue provided by our management software. Over the past three weeks, I have been on the phone with at least four different representatives trying to get the problem solved. It wasn't until a couple of days ago that I had an idea of what may be causing the problem, tried it out, and it worked!

From the student's or teacher's perspective, these little glitches that pop up are minor annoyances that they want fixed ASAP. When they're fixed, they're happy to not have to deal with them anymore. For me, they represent hours of phone calls, emails, and trouble-shooting. When I finally figure out what the issue is, it's a major victory for me because I've usually invested so much time into the process. If you'd walk in on me at this point, you'd literally find me sitting at the computer alone, cheering out loud with my hands in the air, and maybe even doing a little dance! Although I don't have anyone to share the moment with, it feels great to have unraveled a puzzle and helped others in the process.


Photo by Rebecca Bohle from Flickr.

Meet....My Desk.

This post is part of the 30-Day Blog Challenge from TeachThought. To learn more about the challenge go to www.teachthought.com/teaching/reflective-teaching-30-day-blogging-challenge-teachers/.

DAY 8: What's in your desk drawer, and what can you infer from those contents?

Although I didn't get a chance to take a photo of my desk drawer today, I do have a photo of the outside of my desk from last week. I promise this was a genuine, in the moment photo - no posing at all!

As mentioned in a previous post, I recently moved my desk out of my classroom. I have a little office space I share with the other science teacher that is situated between our two classrooms, so you can actually see into the classroom a bit in this photo. Since I'm trying to keep the classroom space more about the students and less about me this year, my desk has turned into "my space." You can probably see I have a few family photos on my desk, and many art projects created by my two boys hanging on the window between the office and the classroom. Also, boxed in yellow is a pencil holder my sons made for me out of LEGOs this year. I am often conflicted about the amount of time I sacrifice with my family because I'm working at school. All of those late nights and early mornings somehow seem better when I'm surround by reminders of them.

Scattered about my desk are little reminders of the dual position I've started this year. I'm teaching high school science in the mornings (hence, the safety goggles boxed in blue) and working as the District Technology Integrationist in the afternoon (notice there were actually 5 devices on my desk on this day: my iPhone, my MacBook, and three iPads, boxed in green). I was initially worried about taking on the technology position this year, but so far I've really enjoyed the experience. It creates a nice balance in my day, and I've truly enjoyed getting to know my colleagues better by working with them closely on technology goals.

The yellow arrow is pointing to an ink drawing my sister-in-law made of a jumping spider. I love the artistic side of science and have it scattered throughout the room. Other artwork includes framed nature photos taken by my mother and butterfly still-lifes created by my grandmother. I think it's important to remind students of the beauty of living things - even spiders!

The red arrow is pointing to my "I'll get to this eventually pile." I am a pile person. And a list person. It makes me feel better just to organize things. It might not make them get done any faster, but boy do I feel refreshed after shuffling some papers into a couple of piles or, best of all (!), transferring three lists into one. Try it sometime; it's amazing how good it is for stress reduction!

The red circle is around a wearable, light-up bracelet I made at ISTE this summer. Well, it's supposed to light up, but I never got it to work. I like to keep it visible because it reminds me that sometimes the process is more important than the outcome. Enough said.

Finally, I'll wrap up with the bumper stickers boxed in red and blue on the wall. I point these out only because they are a reflection of my dry sense of humor. One is from a favorite thai restaurant in St. Paul. It says, "Thai it. You'll like it." The one above that one says, "Honk if you understand punctuated equilibria," (biology teachers out there should be smiling at this point), and the one at the top says, "Promote Global Worming." That one came with some vermicomposting bins we ordered for a school project. These are my attempts to keep things light-hearted when busy working away at my desk.

Family, science, technology, art, organization, and humor. If this is what my desk says about me, I think I'm okay with that. 

An Ode to Teachers in Special Education

This post is part of the 30-Day Blog Challenge from TeachThought. To learn more about the challenge go to www.teachthought.com/teaching/reflective-teaching-30-day-blogging-challenge-teachers/.

DAY 7: Who was or is your most inspirational colleague, and why?

I have long been in awe of Special Education teachers for many reasons. They navigate a foreign land where the cities' names consist of strange acronyms and the mountains are made of stacks of paperwork. The amount of education they completed to earn a license is impressive. And it seems that they, more than any other teacher, are most affected by legislative changes and are always working to stay compliant with the latest updates in education law.

When I think of an inspirational colleague, it turns out that the one who comes to mind is a retired Special Education teacher. That she was able to navigate all of the challenges mentioned above gracefully and patiently made her a super hero, but that's not what made her inspirational to me. It was Pat's work with her students that make her unique in my eyes.

By nature, lessons in Special Education are individualized, but Pat was an expert at figuring out what made her students excited to learn. She was able to weave the concepts students needed to understand into real-life activities and topics that motivated her students to learn more deeply. She also had a talent for relating to her students in a way that made them feel respected, supported, and independent - all at the same time. Because of her relationships with her students, she inspired them to work harder and accomplish more in her class than they did in any other area of their lives. Her steady, down-to-earth personality and dry sense of humor provided a sense of stability and trust that many of her students craved. Even after Pat's students had graduated, they would stay in contact with her, sharing updates about their jobs or schools. When Pat retired a few years ago, the eloquence and love with which she spoke of her students during her farewell speech had me in tears.

Pat is my inspiration because of the respect and admiration she engendered in her students. She pushed them to work hard, and they loved her for it.

My many thanks to all of the Special Education teachers out there who provide amazing learning opportunities for truly special students. You all inspire me!

Photo from Nir Tober, licensed through Creative Commons by Flickr.

Here's To My Mentor, My PLN.

Image from ellenc808 at Flickr.

This post is part of the 30-Day Blog Challenge from TeachThought. To learn more about the challenge go to www.teachthought.com/teaching/reflective-teaching-30-day-blogging-challenge-teachers/.

DAY 6: Explain: What does a good mentor "do"?

Let's take a brief tour through my thirteen years of teaching thus far.

Year 0, Preservice Teaching: I had the opportunity to student teach in a large inner-city high school. I was assigned three different preps to teach. The classroom teacher to whom I was assigned was very friendly, but also excited to enjoy some time out of the classroom. I observed her teach for about a week, and then I was pretty much on my own.  The way I remember it, however, is that this didn't really bother me at the time. I think I just assumed it was how student-teaching was meant to be. Any sign of mentorship? Nope.

Years 1-2, My First Teaching Position: During my first two years of teaching I was the only life science teacher at a small, private high school, so I taught four preps. There were two other science teachers, but we didn't communicate very often. One was a great teacher and very genuine man, but close to retirement and not interested in taking a wide-eyed new educator under his wing. The other was busy with her young children and had little time for working with me. In fact, I ended up subbing for her while she was on maternity leave. Neither of these individuals shunned me or treated me poorly. The conditions and supports just weren't there for a positive mentoring experience. But again, I didn't know what I was missing.

Years 3-4, The First Years In My Current School: I accepted a position as the life science teacher at a new district, this time in a small, rural public high school. The other high school science teacher was an old-school "sit in your seat and listen" teacher on the verge of retirement. Again, he was friendly enough - he and his wife actually took my young family out to dinner one night - but not interested in being a mentor. In fact, I remember feeling confused when he missed our first district-scheduled mentorship meeting because he was "at the lake."  So I plowed ahead on my own again, with four preps, one of which was a Soil Science class I hadn't a clue how to teach and another being an Anatomy class I was required to teach over TV!

Years 5-11, The "Nose To The Grindstone" Years: When I think back on these years, I see flickers of connections with potential mentors, but nothing that was sustainable. I would attend a great workshop or continuing education class, bring home good ideas for my classes, but was never able to sustain any relationships that were initiated at the training. I was constantly searching online for appropriate lessons for my students and suggestions to improve their learning, but the results were sporadic. I pretty much did all of my reflection in my own head, my only sounding board being....me.  A new science teacher was hired when the previous teacher retired, and I suddenly found myself in the role of a mentor for someone else. I was certainly growing from the conversations we had, but still didn't feel as though I had a mentor of my own.

Year 12: The Year I Found A PLN: In the summer of 2014, I was taking an online class and was encouraged to become more active on Twitter. I also learned how to use Google+ during that same time. It was a revelation. Slowly but surely, I began to make connections with other teachers, join in global conversations, and get a peak into classrooms across the nation. My PLN became my mentors. Why do I feel a PLN is the first mentor I've ever truly had? Because these are the people that inspire and motivate me. They make me a more reflective teacher and ensure that my excitement for learning is being constantly rejuvenated. Most importantly, they challenge me. I see what others are accomplishing and the risks they are taking, and that motivates me to do the same. Never before has anyone truly pushed me as a teacher. Up until last year, I was pretty much in my own little bubble and any "pushing" was solely the result of self-motivation.

I have grown more in my most recent year of teaching than I did in the previous 11 because my "mentor" inspired me to think more deeply about learning and collaboration. This experience has also made me a more effective mentor to others. Let's continue to leverage technology and global connections so that there is no longer any excuse for a first-year teacher, or any teacher for that matter, to feel alone in his/her struggles.

*If you are a new teacher and looking to develop a PLN, or an experienced teacher willing to reach out to others, consider participating in New Teacher Chat (#ntchat) weekly on Twitter. More information can be found HERE.

Whose Classroom Is It? Yours, or Theirs?

This post is part of the 30-Day Blog Challenge from TeachThought. To learn more about the challenge go to www.teachthought.com/teaching/reflective-teaching-30-day-blogging-challenge-teachers/.

DAY 5: Post a picture of your classroom, and describe what you see - and what you don't see that you'd like to.

I almost did it. I almost wrote a post that took the reader on a tour of my entire classroom, showing off the little personal touches and clever uses of space that are scattered throughout the room. I even had all 10 photos loaded and ready to go. But something inside me said, STOP!

I didn't get far into writing this post before I realized that the physical spaces aren't what defines my "classroom." Without the students, it's just a room like any other. Their presence is what makes the space come alive, not some inspiring poster in the corner or the latest organizational contraption.

Over the summer, I made some changes to my classroom with this theme in mind. I tried to imagine a space that was a reflection of the students, instead of a reflection of me. So I removed my teacher desk from the classroom to open up more space in the room. I pulled the majority of the posters and pictures off of the walls. The intent is to avoid students being over-powered with a sense of Mrs. Meyer when they enter the room. Instead, they'll slowly create their own space while personal, individual learning artifacts fill the walls throughout the year.

So the photo of my classroom I chose to share in this post is a photo of the students. This picture says so much about the type of learning I strive for my students to participate in daily. Others may look at the photo and see a jumbled mess of 20 students going in 20 different directions. I look at the photo and see students owning their space.

This is what the classroom looks like in the middle of an investigation. The four students sitting at the table in the forefront are one team. At the time of the photo, they were still working on designing their procedure, alternating between debating the process and recording information in notebooks. The two girls in the back indicated by blue arrows were also discussing their procedure. One of the girls was absent from class yesterday, so her teammate was filling her in on what she missed and listening to the new ideas she proposed. The back counter is where all the supplies for the lab were set up. The student boxed in yellow is gathering some supplies for her group. The girl circled in green is from the same group as the "yellow box" girl, but she is temporarily helping a different team with a question they had regarding supplies. It is important to me that students experience ease and independence in my classroom.  All the teams completed the investigation, but the steps they took, the space they used, and the resources they harnessed to accomplish that goal varied.

Finally, take a look at the huge smile on the face of the girl with the red arrow. She's pipetting bromothymol blue, so I'm not sure exactly why she was smiling. Maybe somebody on her team made a joke, or maybe she knew I was taking a photo (like the boy in the Twins shirt!), but regardless of the reason, this is my measure of whether or not the classroom is working for the students. A classroom should be a place in which smiling and learning go hand in hand. This is the type of experience that isn't created by motivational posters or reading nooks. It happens naturally when the learning environment is a direct result of the relationships that are developing within it.

Do all of my classes look like this every day? Certainly not. Sometimes the students are going in 20 different directions because they're distracting each other or confused. Sometimes they're all sitting in their chairs, with no glimmer of a smile on their faces. Sometimes they're pipetting water at each other instead of into a test tube! But I love the possibility in this photo. Given the appropriate resources and some trust on the part of their teacher, students can own their learning space and thereby own their learning.

Teaching Science, Or Teaching As A Science?

Photo from Lokesh Dhakar at Flickr.

This post is part of the 30-Day Blog Challenge from TeachThought. To learn more about the challenge go to www.teachthought.com/teaching/reflective-teaching-30-day-blogging-challenge-teachers/.

DAY 4: What do you love most about teaching?

I am not one of those educators who knew for a fact when I was a child that I wanted to be a teacher. My mother tells me that I did have a brief moment when I was about 8 years old when I proclaimed that teaching was my chosen profession, but I don't remember it. What I do remember is loving science from the very beginning.

It wasn't a hard decision for me to pursue a Biology degree when I went to college. What I was going to do with that degree was more uncertain. I considered the medical field and research, applied to to graduate school. But it was a faculty member in the Biology department at college who first planted the seed in me that I might enjoy teaching. Beginning with my Sophomore year of college, I was a teaching assistant for introductory Biology courses as part of my work-study contract. The lab director for the department was my supervisor, and one day she casually suggested to me that I might consider teaching. That option was nowhere on my radar at that point, but after I graduated with a Biology degree, it reappeared from the buried recesses of my memory.

So, to make an already-long story a little shorter, here I am, 15 years later, teaching high school science in rural Minnesota. So what is it about teaching that convinced a young woman, focused on science her entire life, to turn her focus to education? Well, it turns out that teaching is a science all it's own.

Inquiry: I'm constantly evaluating the student learning in my classrooms and asking questions about "why." Why do my students always seem to struggle with error analysis? Why are photosynthesis and respiration such challenging topics for students? Why do some student teams stay focused while others are easily distracted? There is no end to the questions that circulate in my mind on a daily basis. Once I've developed some interesting questions, I instinctively move into the next phase, which is...

Experimentation: This might make other people feel uneasy, but I love that the classroom is my own little laboratory. Every day, I manipulate variables and watch the results unfold. If I want to know if peer evaluation will help my students be more reflective learners, I try it out and observe the outcome. Curious about the impact of flipped learning? Attempt a couple lessons and see what happens. How many other professions allow for this level of experimentation and autonomy?

Problem-Solving: In the midst of experimentation, I often observe some unexpected results. Let's say students aren't responding to that peer evaluation experiment mentioned above.  It's time to dig deeper, chat with students, evaluate some work, conference with other teachers. At this point, I pool my resources to evaluate the problem more closely. I try to tease apart the variables to understand what is truly influencing the results I've observed.

What do I love most about teaching? I love the science of teaching. I love its ever-changing, ever-challenging, ever-questioning nature. It pushes me to be a better scientist, and thereby a better educator, one day at a time.