#TeacherPoets Session One with Chris Lehman

This April, I'm writing poetry for the first time in decades.  Each Saturday morning, I will be spending an hour with a dozen or so other #TeacherPoets as we seek to revitalize our own poetry writing in an online workshop and community facilitated by Christopher Lehman.  Session One is archived on Chris's blog, and is also embedded here.

This week, in session one, we focused on writing about what Chris referred to as a "sliver" rather than a large and thematic idea.  By remembering WCW's dictum "no ideas but in things", I am working on being a less harsh critic of my own writing as I keep working on a poem intended to show my feelings about family through a sliver of an experience.

I'm glad to be able to participate in such high quality professional development with this awesome group of teachers and poets.  You can join the conversation on our Google+ community, by checking out the #TeacherPoets action on Twitter, or by simply choosing to join us live at 11EST on 4/19 as we workshop three community members' poems.

#L2BB2L Unconference, a Reflection

As an event organizer, professional developer, and reflective practitioner, I find it valuable to reflect in writing.  Click the image above to read my reflection on the #L2BB2L unconference that I helped organize, held this past weekend at RIT.

Upcoming Presentation: FlipCon14 Annual Conference

I'm very excited to announce that I will be facilitating a session on blended, flipped professional development at FlipCon14, the 7th Annual Flipped Learning Conference near Pittsburgh, PA this June.This is a conference that recognizes that the medium is the message, and the purposeful attention to offering flipped content about flipped content is a model for all of us.

Jon Bergman and Aaron Sams, who literally wrote the book on flipped instruction, will be Keynote speakers.

More details TBD, but do plan to spend June 23-25th either attending onsite or virtually.  Register here.

Don't forget to follow #flipcon14!

Upcoming Presentation at SUNY Geneseo's "3Ts 2014: At the Core of Transliteracy, Technology, and Teaching" Conference

I am very excited to be presenting at SUNY Geneseo's Fourth Annual "3Ts 2014: At the Core of Transliteracy, Technology, and Teaching" Conference.

My session, "Collaborative Learning via Wikis" is 90 minutes long and is the first session in Track 4, "From Bits to Bytes: Using Technology to Encourage Collaboration".  Here's my session summary:

Summary -- In this session, participants will learn how to enable collaborative, tech-assisted, asynchronous creation of content via a wiki (Wikispaces, specifically) . They will view evidence of success of such a teaching method when used in 2012-13 with IB juniors in Hilton High School.         

 
Objectives:

• Participants will gain access to (create an account) and add content to a wiki centered on the use of technology in education.
• Participants will access content another participant has added and interact with it by editing it, elaborating on it, or adding supporting content such as an image.
• Participants will learn how to hyperlink within and between pages on the wiki to demonstrate synthesis of ideas gained from several texts.

Registration is $20 for professionals and $10 for students, and a student scholarship is open until 2/10.  Hope to see you there!

Reflective professional writing as ongoing learning

Check out two blog posts from this fall. 

The first is from the end of the first week of school in which I reflect on moving to a "paperlite" classroom environment assisted by our class set of iPads.

The second - published just a week later - is my attempt to address how educational technology, even when used by a reflective and experienced educator, can hinder instruction when not used purposefully.

 I hope you will join the conversation by adding to the comments.  You can see more of my professional writing by clicking on the link to the right "EduBlog: Fearless Flip."

Purposeful pedagogy means an experiment with "flipping" instruction

During the 2012-2013 school-year, I implemented a "flipped" instructional method with juniors and seniors, aided by a class set of iPads.  View a short video demonstrating what a flipped class looks like in action.  I look forward to your questions and comments about this deliberate pedagogical shift.

You can see more videos explaining pedagogy, implementation of technology, and documenting student learning by accessing my YouTube Channel on the right.

Letter of Introduction

My educational career has been built on my commitment to inclusive education, collaboration with constituents, and desire to find innovative solutions to challenges facing educators.  These values have brought me much success as a teacher as well as a teacher leader.   

I have shared my expertise at working with struggling students with colleagues through my work supervising an after-school program, coordinating curriculum projects, participating on RTI and literacy audit teams, and by designing and teaching professional development courses.  Expanding my professional network to include teachers from across the nation, I created lesson plans with a music teacher from Los Angeles and a librarian from Memphis as a NEH Scholar.   

Through my work creating curriculum, supervising credit recovery programs, and teaching AIS classes and in summer school, you can be assured that I am familiar with the Common Core State Standards and am skilled at using them to craft lesson and unit plans that lead to increased student achievement.

My references will confirm that I am both a skilled educator and communicator, and that I am an integral member of my department and grade level teams because I am resourceful, focused, and positive. My work is evidence of my claims, and is available by following the links on the right. 

I look forward to the possibility of working with the students, parents, staff, and leaders in your organization.  Please contact me through this blog to discuss what I can bring to your organization.