Ms. M's Tales of a Teacher: My Personal Teacher Blog

 Last week I shared out how powerful observing colleagues can be for practicing educators. This week, I want to keep that theme going for just a bit longer, but with a twist!  This past week I had the honor of presenting to the high school students who participate in the Tomorrow's Teachers program in my state. I was at my home base ( Kean University ) to present my work on family engagement. I was pleased to see that the students and their supervisor were happy with what I shared, and we had some time for hands-on work to get these future educators thinking about their future students, classrooms, and families. Of course, I also learned something!  It actually struck me a few days after when I saw a quote on social media: "Sometimes the greatest PD is the teacher down the hall"- Brian Aspinall from We are Teachers/ Education to the Core. As I mentioned in my blog last week, educators learn a lot from each other. The disheartening part is that we are not always provided t...

 I've spent the last few blogs sharing different parts of my experience in writing the Reading/ELA curriculum this year. I shared my experience with racing against the clock, integrating old with new information, and gave suggestions for veteran teachers who are in the same position I was.  Thinking back to my experience, I have grown immensely and I feel excited for continuing to learn about writing curriculum, content for reading, and strengthening my skills in developing curriculum. Although confronted with challenges, this was another rewarding opportunity.  I learned (like all writers,) the hardest part was getting started. I had the foundational layer from two years ago created, but as I mentioned in previous blogs, it felt like the page was (semi) blank with the changes and updates that the curriculum demanded. My approach was spend more time on Unit 1 to set the stage for the rest of the units. This worked well for me, however, everyone works and writes differentl...

 One of the overarching ideas for rewriting the ELA curriculum was the concept of keeping what already worked and add in new details to create and enhance the new version. I paused and thought "would writing from scratch actually be easier in this case?" I determined given the timeframe (see blog post #2) that answer was definitely a no. Others who were creating curriculums from a blank template had a more difficult road to travel by for sure. But for me, as an educator and writer, weaving new and old concepts was a challenge in of itself.  I decided the best way was to start by reading each section what was there, look at new notes I made throughout the year during lessons and reflection, and add those in. There were of course essential pieces we had to include such as new standards, cross-curricular activities, and career readiness. While those were a "copy-paste" movement, it took some time to locate them. Once found, I added all of them into the first unit of t...

 Continuing from where I left off, I'd like to share one of the biggest obstacles I (and other team members) faced this year: time. Having a limited amount of time to write the curriculum put added pressure on me to not only write well, but write well in a specified time frame of about six weeks. (Yes, I had the same reaction...) Right away I tapped into my time management skills and pulled out my schedules. I quickly reorganized other things that could wait and made this a priority.  There is no shame in admitting I ate, slept, and breathed this curriculum for about 20 hours (and to be honest, there's still some work to be done.) I exercised my skill of multitasking to type what I could while I prepared in the classroom for other subjects, and used the "invisible labor" hours in the evening to work quietly in the evening.  It was also about setting goals for me. I find I work more productively when I create benchmarks to finish a project and reach those goals. I full...

 This post truthfully began about a month ago, however, its debut is recent. This is mostly due in part because I had to work through my experience in order to write about it.  About seven weeks ago I was accepted onto the Curriculum Committee at work. Fortunately, the ELA curriculum was originally created about two years ago, and had a solid foundation for Reading Workshop. One might ponder, why then did it take so long to create this new version? This is exactly what I am aiming to share in a mini-blog series. Mostly for veteran teachers who are considering embarking on their own curriculum writing journey for the first time, or perhaps have to edit others' work, my mini-series will cover what I personally experienced, my thoughts, and strategies to get started (and to get through it!) because it is a huge undertaking to set the tone for your grade/ department, etc. in your district or school.  In my humble opinion, the first step begins with agreeing to be a team membe...