The Journey Continues
I view my education as a lifelong journey and every road I travel helps me grow into a stronger and more confident learner and educator. The path I voyaged during the Master of Arts in Educational Technology (MAET) program has taught me valuable skills, strategies, and tools and I am grateful for my experiences. As I exit this road, I need to reflect on my future goals and plans and how I intend on accomplishing them. I’m not entirely sure where my educational journey will take me next, but I do know the areas of study that I want steer in the direction of to better myself. My goals are to strengthen my leadership skills, stay current with educational and technological information, and gain knowledge and experience with competency-based education. These areas of study are important to me because they will help me develop into a stronger educator. I’m dedicated to being a lifelong learner and I’m enriching my educational journey by pursuing these goals.
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"Teacher Leadership is the process by which teachers influence their colleagues, principals, and other members of the school community to improve teaching and learning with the aim of increased student learning and achievement." |
Being a leader and a positive role model has always been important to me and I really enjoyed learning more about leadership styles and strategies through the MAET program. I gained insight on what kind of leader I want to be and how to effectively initiate change. Because of this, I would love to gain more leadership experience through classes and workshops. This will better prepare me to take on leadership roles at my school. One workshop I plan to attend is the Galileo Leadership Consortium. Their mission is to advance the development of teacher leadership to ensure high levels of learning for all. This workshop will help me develop the knowledge, skills, and dispositions of teacher leaders. It’s fortunate that my school district is a part of the Galileo Leadership Consortium and my principal inquired if I would be interested in participating. I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to strengthen my leadership skills through this workshop and hopefully through other workshops and classes. I would then like to use my leadership skills to encourage my colleagues to integrate technology tools into their classrooms in meaningful ways to support learning. As a technology leader I would engage teachers in seeing the affordances of digital tools to engage students and provide differentiated instruction.
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Another goal I have that is connected to being a strong leader is staying current with my professional learning network. I need to be up-to-date on educational and technological information and I plan on doing this by utilizing resources like Twitter and Feedly. My goal is to check these resources more frequently in order to gain beneficial knowledge. I also want to branch out and connect with more educators, leaders, and creators. I can accomplish this by participating in more Twitter conversation like #edchat and #edtech. I plan on posting more content and resources that I find useful with my network. When authentic learning experiences occur in my classroom, I want to document them and share my students’ successes so other educators can benefit from them as well. Collaboration is crucial in education and leadership and I’m excited to start collaborating more.
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Collaboration is going to play an important role in my next goal of becoming more confident with competency-based education. My school district is very interested in this method and we have initiated a competency-based approach in the areas of reading and math. To gain more information on this important topic, I plan on utilizing online resources from CompetencyWorks. These resources aim to provide information and knowledge about competency education through their website and a blog filled with practitioner knowledge. They also have a wiki to make it easy to get examples of materials. I appreciate being able to learn from other teachers who are implementing a competency-based approach and read their advice. I also plan on working closely with my colleagues, principal, and superintendent so we can brainstorm and learn best practices together. My superintendent was 1 of the 100 leading innovators to attend the National Summit on K-12 Competency-Based Education that was hosted by CompetencyWorks. The Summit discussed 6 issues: equity, policy, quality, meeting kids where they are, identifying emerging issues and revising the working definition of competency education. I would love to attend the Summit myself one day to collaboratively work with other teachers and innovators and to learn more on how to provide the best learning experiences for students.
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Enhancing my leadership skills, staying knowledgeable on current educational trends, and becoming confident with competency-based education are all goals that will better me as an educator. My educational journey has been a successful one full of discovery and I look forward to continuing on with my ride. I know that every path I travel is helping me to become the best educator and leader I can be.
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References:
199 Free vector graphics: Twitter. (n.d.). Retrieved June 29, 2017, from https://pixabay.com/en/photos/twitter/?image_type=vector
A. (2013, June 19). Feedly Logo. Retrieved June 29, 2017, from https://www.flickr.com/photos/ajc1/9083456691
Dobson, G. (1970, January 01). BUY DEMAND SELL SUPPLY. Retrieved June 29, 2017, from http://buydemandsellsupply.blogspot.com/
St. Stephen's & St. Agnes School. (2013, June 13). Inspiration. Retrieved June 29, 2017, from https://www.pinterest.com/pin/451063718899439560/
199 Free vector graphics: Twitter. (n.d.). Retrieved June 29, 2017, from https://pixabay.com/en/photos/twitter/?image_type=vector
A. (2013, June 19). Feedly Logo. Retrieved June 29, 2017, from https://www.flickr.com/photos/ajc1/9083456691
Dobson, G. (1970, January 01). BUY DEMAND SELL SUPPLY. Retrieved June 29, 2017, from http://buydemandsellsupply.blogspot.com/
St. Stephen's & St. Agnes School. (2013, June 13). Inspiration. Retrieved June 29, 2017, from https://www.pinterest.com/pin/451063718899439560/